I got done by a bus lane camera approaching Hammersmith roundabout (West side) from the flyover last week. Received the letter over the weekend. It’s a piece of road I go down every day and sometimes when the traffic is backed up I’ll go 1ft into the (always empty) bus lane for about 100m before rejoining the normal lanes. The bus lane signs don’t show a picture of a motorbike so I know it’s a risk but, I always thought they were automatic cameras that just read plates. Since I’ve not been sent anything before I decided it’s obviously nothing to worry about.
It turns out they’re manually operated and you’ll only get done if someone is sitting there tracking you on the camera. I’ve now seen the live video and you see me enter the bus lane, go for about 100m and then rejoin the regular lanes. The camera keeps following me while I filter because to this point they haven’t seen my registration. They catch a brief glimpse of my plate about 100m further up the road.
Does anyone have any experience of successfully appealing bus lane charges? My argument would be that I entered the bus lane not realising it’s one of very few that motorbikes can’t use and I left it as soon as it was safe to do so. Or should I just swallow the £65 fine?
I got done 3times for a violation by a camera like that (someone monitoring) it… Was quite lucky as I got all three fines one after the other and with a bit of time gap from 1st offence; I had been doing that violation for 3 months!!!
But it’s still annoying that some bus lanes permit PTWs and some don’t, some operate 24 hours, some operate bizarre times. It’s more than you want to be dealing with when you are filtering in London traffic which needs 100% of your attention. Bus lane rules should be consistent.
I dont know, im always an advocate of arguing your case before just giving in. With any parking fine I get, ill always argue it first even if I did do the crime as people say. Sometimes it will pay of; ive gotten off of a few parking tickets this way. If you decide to appeal, with parking tickets at least; you’ll still only pay the discretionary cheap price so long as you argue it within the time frame given they freeze it. I presume its the same for bus lane fines but do check first.
If it is, then argue it first; nothing to lose and a lot to gain.
Haha I don’t even know what a “New media type” is and I’m too lazy to start a go fund me page so I’m just going to pay the fine.
I’ll add it to the already astronomical incidentals this month, along with an emergency plumber on Saturday night to fix a burst water pipe that appeared after all of the ice melted.
You should appeal it. They might cancel it - nothing to lose really.
I’ve appealed a parking fine in Westminster, when I didn’t realize my parking period has expired. They cancelled it on the grounds that it was my first time.
when i notice the camera in the sky I try and make sure I eye ball which way its pointing (some boroughs have remote operators covering other areas so the ball camera can sometimes give you a sporting chance … so often they try to track you to get the camera pointing and you can play with them by getting back ONSIDE … by they time they get it back in your direction you are cool as
Why not just obey the rules of the road?
National Treasure
Excellent douche-bag response. It's not like I was breaking speed limits, going the wrong way down a one way street. endangering other road users or running red lights. I used an empty bus lane to filter past some traffic. Three minutes later I'm allowed to filter past traffic in the middle of the road with oncoming vehicles without a fine, so I fail to see why this situation warrants punishment when it's much safer for all concerned.
Either all bus lanes should be open to bikes or none of them. I find it to be disingenuous that a local authority has one small section that isn’t amongst the many miles in their borough that are. It smacks of deception and a money-making scheme, when most bikers will assume that the bus lane is open for them to use.
A little harsh Alex, the comment was made at Kris’s post. He seems to advocate the risk of a fine for little if any gain.
I think you need to look into the history of the bus lane to understand how it’s supposed to work. The original Bus Lane idea was to speed up the Bus Network in an attempt to make bus traveling times more competitive with the quicker but overcrowded Underground Network. There was also thought to be an added on the side bonus of reducing the city motor traffic problem too because a faster bus service would also attract other road users onto the service. It never worked then, it doesn’t work now.
