Safe Speed Forums

Labour 'milked the motorist' for an astonishing £1billion in speeding tickets - half of it raised in the last five years alone.

The first full research on the speed camera regime under the last government has revealed how more than 17million motorists were hit with fixed penalty fines.

In the final years of Labour, when all the income was going direct to the Treasury, the government was earning up to £10,000 every hour.

Between 2005 and 2009, for which figures have just been published, 8,282,905 fixed penalty notices were issued to motorists in England and Wales for speeding.

With fines of £60 per offence, that means drivers have been hit for £496,974,300 in only five years.

Tory MP David Ruffley, who uncovered the figures, said: 'Labour treated the British motorist like a massive cashpoint machine on wheels.

Half a billion pounds in five years is a colossal amount to milk from motorists for speeding. I have yet to meet anyone who thinks these sums have been invested to improve our road network.'

Labour presided over a massive increase in speed cameras. It also increased the level of fines from £40 to £60 in 2000.

In 1997, when Tony Blair was first elected, motoring fines were raising only £28.5million. In 2009, the figure was £68,161,320 – more than double.