UK pays £30 million a month in parking fines

British motorists are paying out a massive £30 million in parking fines every month, according to Freedom Of Information data obtained by LV= car insurance.

So far in 2013, councils have handed out over 890,000 tickets a month – an increase of 4% on 2012 figures. The huge £30 million total is based on the UK average parking fine of £42.

London is parking charge capital of the world

On Bing: see pictures of parking fines

Perhaps not surprisingly, the most active parking wardens in the country can be found in the City of Westminster, where an average of 1,269 parking fines are handed out every day. Woe betides anyone who happens to wait at a red light for too long – you may end up with a yellow ticket slapped on your windscreen.

The Westminster figure is even more astounding when you consider that the city with the next highest figure – Birmingham – handed out 339 fines per day. Next up was Bristol, with 271 per day.

Anyone looking to escape the threat of a parking fine should probably head to the north of Scotland, in particular Moray, where just 113 tickets were issued. In six months!

Across the country, there’s been a significant increase in the number of tickets issued on a Sunday, with 284,000 fines handed out in the first five months of 2013 – an increase of 13% on the same time last year.

So why the increase in the number of fines?

LV= points to the fact that parking rules differ from council to council, so whilst one street may allow for free Sunday parking, the road just around the corner may not. Or perhaps people are just failing to read the signs? Or are simply increasingly prepared to risk the attention of the lurking parking warden.

Whatever the reason, £30 million is an awful lot of money. You could buy a third of Gareth Bale for that amount of cash…

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By motoringresearch.com