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Foreign drivers in UK must be forced to pay their fines
Page 10
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[he scale of the problem is unknown because local authorities "don't )other" keeping statistics due to the cost. David Harris reports.
'ORLIGN DRIVERS who ;nore traffic and parking fines -lust be .forced to pay up, a uropean seminar was told ist week.
The ability of foreign vehicles ) evade lines has been a problem London for years. Last week's .minar,organised by Eurosparks, leFuropean-funded cross-border affic enforcement research roject set up last year, heard that is difficult for local authorities to .ace foreign vehicles when trying 'collect fines, Nick Lester, director of -ansport, environment and tanning for London Councils, told ie seminar: "There is confusion mong member states as to • hether existing EU legislation An be used to enforce payment f decriminalised traffic penalties -o legal remedies are available ) local authorities seeking to recover civil administrative debts across national borders."
A spokeswoman for Eurosparks says local authorities have become so resigned to being unable to collect fines from foreign offenders that they don't even keep statistics: "Collating statistics costs them money and because they don't think they can get any back they don't bother. We just don't know what proportion of these fines are for commercial vehicles."
Eurosparks says the number of foreign LGVs coming into the UK has trebled in the past 1 0 years — 1.7 million foreign LGVs now come through UK ports each year. This means that 8% of the LGVs on UK roads at any one time are foreign-registered.
Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford says: "The number of unpaid fines by foreign drivers is completely unacceptable. Londoners will not understand how the EU can freely give their personal data away to the US when they take a plane but cannot sort out this headache."
FOR MORE ON THIS AND RELATE] SUBJECTS
www.roadtransport.com/cm