Sadiq Khan’s Transport for London tried to fleece drivers out of a massive £23.1million through fines which wrongly said their cars were not Ulez-compliant.
TfL has admitted that drivers of compliant cars with missing emissions data will be slapped with an £180 penalty charge notice (PCN) if they do not pay the £12.50-a-day Ulez charge.
But since the introduction of the Ulez in 2019, 128,577 fines – totalling more than £23.1million – have been cancelled after drivers managed to prove that their cars in fact did meet emissions standards.
Ulez rules state that to be compliant, cars (petrol or diesel) have to release less than 0.08g of NOx – harmful pollutants – per kilometre. This information has been recorded by many manufacturers on a Certificates of Conformity since the late 1990s.
But the DVLA did not start routinely logging this until the mid-2000s, meaning that cars from this period are likely to have a blank entry for this crucial piece of data.
Sadiq Khan’s Transport for London tried to fleece drivers out of a massive £23.1million through fines which wrongly said their cars were not Ulez-compliant
TfL has admitted that drivers of compliant cars with missing emissions data will be slapped with an £180 penalty charge notice (PCN) if they do not pay the Ulez charge
This comes after reporter Darren Boyle revealed he was unjustly fined for driving through London in his Ulez-compliant classic Porcshe Boxster.
EXCLUSIVEREAD MORE: My £5k Porsche is Ulez compliant but Sadiq Khan’s enforcers bombarded me with fines – here’s how I fought back
Tory Mayoral candidate Susan Hall hit out, saying: ‘Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ expansion is nothing but a cash grab, which is why he has been using dodgy emissions data to wrongfully fine innocent people with compliant vehicles.
‘Londoners deserve so much better than a Mayor who only cares about himself. As Mayor, I will end Sadiq Khan’s war on motorists and scrap his unfair ULEZ expansion on day one.’
TfL has said the 128,577 fines which were cancelled after vehicle owners provided ‘sufficient proof of compliance’ make up 2.6 per cent of the total Ulez PCNs issued since the start of the scheme in 2019 have.
A spokeswoman suggested that fines – which double to £180 from £90 if they are not paid within 14 days – being handed out in cases where the emissions data is unknown was down to a ‘logistical issue’ in the development of the scheme.
She added that TfL has made efforts to ensure people knew if their vehicles were compliant before driving on London’s roads, such as using their own compliance checker.
But a decision must have been made in the development of the scheme to assume that cars with missing emissions data were non-compliant – and then to issue a fine if the charge went unpaid.
The spokesperson was unable to answer when asked how this decision was reached, but they said they were working to resolve the issue.
reporter Darren Boyle revealed he was unjustly fined for driving through London in his Ulez-compliant classic Porcshe Boxster
A TfL spokesperson also said: ‘We rely on DVLA records supplied by vehicle manufacturers for our road user charging schemes including the ULEZ. It is the responsibility of vehicle owners to ensure that their registered details with the DVLA are complete and up to date.
‘If a vehicle owner believes that their vehicle meets the ULEZ standard and want to avoid a charge, they should contact us and provide us with a copy of the vehicle’s V5C or non-UK equivalent and a letter from the vehicle manufacturer’s homologation department stating the vehicle’s Euro standard or a conformity certificate.’
TfL confirmed they rely on information supplied by the DVLA to determine whether a car is compliant and routinely reject cars based on age alone, insisting it is up to the owner to prove compliance.
They said the ‘prevailing standard’ 20 years ago was Euro 3 – which had an NOx limit of 0.15 – roughly double the Euro 4 limit of 0.08.
‘The ULEZ standard for passenger cars is equivalent to Euro 4 for petrol cars and Euro 6 for diesel cars. Compliance is assessed on the emissions recorded by the DVLA and shown on the V5C document. Only where no data is recorded is an age-based approximation used.’