Transport for London netted £6.6 million from bus lane fines last year – a 400% surge over three years – as Lord Khan’s administration continues to pile charges on the capital’s drivers. The Labour mayor, recently ennobled by Sir Keir Starmer, is now collecting £87,177 per mile of bus lane annually. The Mail has the story:
Lord Khan, the Labour mayor for London, is raking in more than £750 an hour from bus lane fines after the cash he’s netted from them rocketed 400%.
Figures show Transport for London (TfL), which he chairs, netted a staggering £6.6million from 54,761 motorists straying into bus lanes across the capital last year (2025-26).
This was up from £4.3million and 29,423 drivers the year before – a 53% jump in cash terms – and a five-fold surge from £1.2million involving 8,900 drivers three years ago.
It means the Labour grandee, who was handed a peerage by former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer last month, is raking in £87,177 in fines per mile of bus lane across London. There are around 76 miles of bus lanes in the capital.
It comes on top of a string of charges piled on drivers by Lord Khan’s administration in recent years, including a huge expansion of the £12.50-a-day Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) charge for older cars.
He has also hiked the daily Congestion Zone to up to £21 and introduced new river crossing tolls, including for use of the newly built Silvertown Tunnel and historically free Blackwall Tunnel.
Drivers who stray into bus lanes – often for only a matter of seconds – are hit with Penalty Charge Notices of £160, normally reduced to £80 if paid within a certain time limit.
But motorists often complain of confusing road layouts, poor signage or faded road markings that suggest some are designed to ‘catch out’ drivers.
Tory shadow transport minister Greg Smith said: “What is it with Labour politicians fleecing motorists?
“Under Khan, London has become a miserable place to try and get about – and that is in no small part to his constant pick-pocketing of drivers at every turn.
“For the city to work, people need to be free to get about how they choose, not constantly hindered – financially or otherwise.”
The AA’s Luke Bosdet said: “It’s said that London’s streets are paved with gold. We now know this is true, in terms of the millions of pounds in fines – and it’s getting worse.
“London road authorities absolutely love their fines. Like others in cities and big towns up and down the country, they have become utterly reliant on Penalty Charge Notice income.”
It comes after a raft of policies being considered or rolled out by Labour which critics have branded ‘anti-driver’ and a ‘war on motorists’.
Last month, the the Mail revealed how parking tickets could more than double outside of London under proposals being considered by ministers.
At present, tickets are capped at £70 but could soar to £160 under the proposals.
Worth reading in full.
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With all that cash you would think he could keep the roadsides clean. Guess not. Brits must be so ashamed of the state of your country.
Like everythimg else in modern Britain it’s designef explicitly to transfe4 money and resources from the law abiding and hard working to the fecklesdcand unproductive.
These fines are insane.
They should never exceed 30-40 quid and ideally should be calibrated to your income, so that they represent x hours of work (after tax), in that way they are a similar punishment for all.
Wait a minute. You need to offset expenditure against the income. There must be an army of enforcers, clerks and so forth whose salaries have to be counted. One might I suppose argue that they help reduce the unemployment problem.
I’m so tired now, as I can’t go where I want (without paying cos my car’s too old), can’t simply see what I want (without proving it’s really me & I’m old enough), don’t like most of the odours I have to smell walking up my high street, don’t understand any of the languages I hear around me, and hate the sour taste of defeat….
Can someone please make it stop.?
Box junctions are also very bad.
The penalties are so high no one would get caught in them other than by accident. Other drivers stop for all sorts of reasons and leave you trapped.
Sometimes drivers pull in front and you get stuck. no one ever catches them. Ditto motor cyclists, pedal cyclists and pedestrians just cross in front of cars.
The poorly designed roads, inadequate junctions and over crowding are the true culprits.
Pay all Penalty Charge Notice revenue to the Treasury. That should sort out any alleged profiteering by Councils.
With our current government complicit in the war on private transport, I expect councils that contributed the most to the Treasury via this route would receive increased funding from central government by way of a reward.