Taxis are exempt from London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone charges so, in theory, any driver who receives a fine for not paying the £12.50 daily fee doesn’t have anything to worry about.
But the reality is thousands of drivers are extremely worried that bailiffs will come after them for non-payment of fines – with some wanting to pay up even though they know the tickets were issued by mistake.
‘Glitch’
The latest situation arose after what Transport for London called “a glitch” led to thousands of taxi drivers wrongly receiving £180 penalty charge notices for entering the ULEZ zone at the end of September and the start of October.
GB News reports that 7,563 penalty notices were incorrectly issued – including an operator with a fleet of 300 EVs.
Lee Drinkwater, who runs a fleet of electric taxis, told the BBC he knew of 300 penalty charge notices sent to his drivers and was asked by TfL to send in licence details for each driver to have the charges cancelled.
He said: “I can’t have staff spending this much time on the tickets … it’s not acceptable.”
GB News reported that TfL has “acknowledged the mistake and issued an apology stating: “We are aware that some taxi drivers have received PCNs incorrectly due to a system issue. We have written to vehicle owners to confirm they do not need to take any action, and that any PCNs that have been incorrectly issued will be cancelled’.”
Concerns
But taxi bosses say the latest error left drivers so worried that some were considering paying the fines just to make the issue go away.
Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association general secretary Steve McNamara is quoted by GB News as saying: “Our phone systems are in meltdown because our members cannot get in touch with TFL. Thousands of my members have been affected by this. We’ve had over 500 calls this morning alone.
“Members are struggling to get through to TFL so they’re all ringing us and consequently our phones are jumping off the hook … this should not have happened.”
He said the situation had been extremely stressful for drivers as unpaid fines can lead to bailiffs getting involved to recover the debt.
TfL has confirmed to GB News that it will write to all affected vehicle owners reassuring them they do not need to take any action regarding the incorrect penalty notices.
Recurring problem
Mr McNamara told the BBC that this is not the first time penalty charges have been wrongly sent out, including an apparent recent IT hack on TfL. All tickets incorrectly issued at the time were cancelled.
And in May, drivers wrongly received fines after ULEZ cameras misread number plates. In one instance, a driver who had driven his car to Ukraine and donated it to soldiers fighting against Russia received fines and the threat of legal action after his vehicle apparently entered the ULEZ months later – when it was more than 1,400 miles away. His own lawyers proved that the number plates didn’t match.
In other cases, innocent drivers have received fines after their number plates were apparently cloned by criminals trying to avoid paying the ULEZ fees.
Whatever the cause of incorrectly issued fines – IT glitches or hacks, cameras misreading number plates or cloned number plates – it causes a lot of worry and inconvenience for drivers to sort out and it is understandably taking its toll on them. Many are understandably wary that unpaid tickets are quickly followed by bailiffs and other legal problems they could do without.
