Careless drivers and cyclists be warned: Revived Operation Safeway fines could raise millions as London road deaths triple
A tripling of deaths on London’s roads has led Scotland Yard to re-implement a highway safety organisation.
Since the beginning of 2015, 29 people have been killed on the capital’s roads; over the same period last year the figure was 10. The scale of the operation will be impressive: 600 officers positioned at 166 selected junctions during a period of six weeks.
The last time the operation, codenamed Safeway, was implemented it resulted in 13,800 drivers and cyclists being hit with fines for a range of offences. Drivers were often pinged for using mobile phones or speeding, while cyclists tended to be fined for riding on pavements, jumping red lights or not having the correct lights.
Of a total 13,818 fines, 4,085 were given to cyclists. The amounts shelled out by motorists and cyclists are considerable. Most offences carry a fine of £1,000, but careless driving is higher at £5,000 and dangerous driving carries an unlimited fine as a maximum penalty.
Riding on the pavement or careless cycling will cost an offender £500 or £1,000 respectively. If every fine given during the six weeks of the first Operation Safeway was £1,000, the government would have made over £13m.
Below is a map of every collision in London involving a cyclist in 2013. Read the full article here. Yellow dots are slight injuries, orange dots are serious accidents and dark red dots show where cyclists were killed.