Bus lane fine

maurice28

On Saturday night at about midnight, I drove 250 feet down a bus lane in the centre of Manchester after picking my wife up from a night out. If anyone knows Manchester, I turned right onto Church Street from Union Street in the Northern Quarter. It was quiet, no buses around.

I then realised as soon as I’d turned that I shouldn’t have. I think I had it in my head that the bus lane had operational hours but checking Google StreetView it doesn’t look it has times on the sign, hence 24 hours.

I’ll pay the fine when it comes through (£30 if I pay it quick, which I will!) but wondered if anyone knew from experience how long it takes these fines to come through? And I guess it’s wishful thinking that the camera might not be working?!

PS: Sorry if this should be on the fines board instead!

dld2s

Mines arrived within 7 days, but think they have to get fine to you within 14 days of the offence, although i'm not 100% on that and could be wrong

accidentalspender

You don't make it clear whether you've received a notice. If you haven't, you might not.
If you do, it wouldn't hurt to write a very polite appeal about being unfamiliar with the area, driving at night, you were lost, looking for a specific house number etc.. Won't do any harm & you might catch the appeals clerk in a good mood.

topdaddy_2

I was under the impression that bus lane times had to be stated even if its 24hrs. Might nit be by the sounds of things. Also any cameras around? How would you have been caught?

londonTiger

topdaddy wrote: »

I was under the impression that bus lane times had to be stated even if its 24hrs. Might nit be by the sounds of things. Also any cameras around? How would you have been caught?

they're always stated but must always have signs on the start and possibly at set intervals.

In any case some vandals may have turned the signs or it might be missing. I certainly wouldn't jump onto the bus lane without seeing a sign first and foremost.

londonTiger

maurice28 wrote: »

I’ll pay the fine when it comes through (£30 if I pay it quick, which I will!) but wondered if anyone knew from experience how long it takes these fines to come through? And I guess it’s wishful thinking that the camera might not be working?!

PS: Sorry if this should be on the fines board instead!

My hunch is bus lane cameras are not automatic and need to be observed by CCTV controller who will monitor and record incriminating footage.

I could be wrong of course, seems archaic to have to do it this way.

My hunch is because I drove around bus lanes all day on two Bank holidays and didn't get ticketed. I knew that for parking control purposes parking bays were treated as a Sunday for bank holiday Mondays. Somehow I thought the same applies to bus lanes.

I subsequently googled out of curiosity, and found the official ruling that Bank holiday monday are treated like a regular Monday: http://mqt.london.gov.uk/mqt/public/question.do?id=8245

So why didn't I get ticketed for using bus lanes liberally on two bank holidays? I think the CCTV staff were on leave as it was a public holiday.

So long story short, you may get away with it. Just wait for the letter to arrive.

If you're worried that you may be issues a fine but got lost in the post, phone up your council and ask if there are any penalties for you.

londonTiger

n.b. some buses have bus lane fine issuing systems in place.

ado

From what I understand and have observed bus lane monitoring falls into two categories. You either have the police issuing tickets on a very ad hoc basis or you have ANPR cameras doing it automatically. Leicester for example has ANPR cameras at the start of two short bus only areas whilst I've seen cameras stretched along the whole distance of a bus lane near Heathrow airport, but these don't cover the entire stretch but would be enough to catch most offenders.

There probably would not be a human CCTV operator monitoring compliance and even if there was they would be working on bank holidays as the CCTV system in a busy city centre is monitored 24/7 looking for disorder and shop lifters etc.

londonTiger

you're probably right, there probably are ANPR type CCTV cameras in certain areas but there are also definately human monitored bus lane CCTV as shown in the recent parking documentary of a small English town.

Dont know the name of the show but it was about a mayor who wanted to turn the whole town into a cambridge-esque cycling town and was imposing draconian parking controls in the city centre.

There was a clip of the CCTV controller manually recording a van and issuing bus lane fine.

dld2s

accidentalspender wrote: »

You don't make it clear whether you've received a notice. If you haven't, you might not.
If you do, it wouldn't hurt to write a very polite appeal about being unfamiliar with the area, driving at night, you were lost, looking for a specific house number etc.. Won't do any harm & you might catch the appeals clerk in a good mood.

Personally, going by my experience that wont work, remember this is all about the councils making money but claiming it's to ease traffic congestion, Aye Right!

scotsbob

Worth a read as the appeal success rate seems to be very high.

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/woman-wins-battle-over-glasgow-bus-lane-fines-145302n.22938945