MOTORISTS wanting to escape parking tickets, speeding fines and congestion charges increasingly are registering their vehicles overseas.

The rise in second homes on the Continent is contributing to the increase in unpaid tickets incurred by cars with foreign numberplates, according to the Association of London Government.

The loophole has been exposed by a reporter at a car magazine, who totted up £880 of tickets that have not been pursued by the authorities.

Matt Watson, of Auto Express, went to Amiens in France to buy a Renault 5 for £600, registered it in France at a friend’s address and then returned to Britain to try his luck at dodging motoring fines.

In his undercover investigation, he racked up five parking tickets around the country, failed to pay the congestion charge three times in London and drove in bus lanes in front of enforcement cameras.

Two months later no fines or penalty payments have been issued to the registered driver in France.

In Walsall, West Midlands, Mr Watson parked the Renault on double yellow lines outside the Civic Centre.

Two wardens approached the car, but neither issued a ticket after spotting the foreign licence plate. The car also seemed to repel parking attendants in Birmingham, where one began to write out a ticket, but stopped on seeing the plate and moved on.

In Liverpool, it was illegally parked at a taxi rank, but was repeatedly ignored by wardens, who walked past it when they saw the plate. The association said that more than 250,000 parking tickets and bus-lane fines issued to foreign-registered vehicles were not paid last year, costing the London boroughs more than £12 million in lost revenue.

Nick Lester, the association’s transport director, said that the authorities could do little because most other countries were reluctant to hand over drivers’ details.

German law prevents debt collectors from obtaining a driver’s identity from his numberplate. The fee charged by France’s licensing agency for identifying a driver exceeds the amount that the authority could hope to recover. Scandinavian countries give the driver’s name and address, but “most drivers respond by throwing the letter in the bin and it is very difficult to pursue them through foreign courts”, Mr Lester said.

“The rise in second homes in France is making it much easier to take advantage of this loophole.” He said that the solution was to clamp and impound foreign vehicles and make their owners pay up on the spot.Transport for London dismissed the company that it uses to pursue foreign drivers, but it signed a new contract yesterday, which it claimed would improve the recovery rate. The Government plans to give police new powers to fine drivers at the roadside.

The European Commission is seeking a directive under which fines imposed by English courts could be enforced by baliffs throughout the European Union. Another European scheme would give EU member states access to each other’s licensing databases. This is not expected to happen until after 2010.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Times Christmas appeal: Letter from the Editor
• Conferences — what a waste of money
• Schools supremo learns a painful lesson