By IRNA
London : More than four in every ten drivers are fined annually for illegal parking, speeding and other offenses, according to official figures in the annual Ministry of Justice Motoring Offenses and Breath Test Bulletin.
The accumulated fines cost up to Pnds 800 million (Dlrs 1.6 m) mostly for minor offenses and has led to accusation that motorists are an easy target for the government and local authorities to collect revenues.
The majority of offenses, some 7.8 m out of a total of 12.7 m, were recorded in 2006 were logged by traffic wardens, mostly for parking and waiting without a ticket or permit.
In addition, nearly 2 million drivers were caught by cameras for speeding, up from just 323,200 in 1997.
Police were found to have also handed out three million fixed-penalty notices – the vast majority for speeding.
Of the fixed-penalty notices, 164,900 were handed out to motorists caught using mobile phones at the wheel in 2006, up 38,100 on the previous year.