The Dartford Tolls

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Last year it was in the local paper that the crossing was owed millions in unpaid fines....

The reason they are having this issue is that they decided to continue charging when they were supposed to stop charging (after the initial construction cost was repaid), but the local residents in Dartford objected to the old toll booth system that saw dozens of lorries queuing and caused a massive issue with air quality in the area.

The compromise was to continue charging but switch to ANPR-based payment, which prevents the pollution issue from queuing vehicles but obviously means that some tolls and fines will remain uncollected.

Still, even so the crossing generates more revenue than it would have done if they stopped charging altogether as they said they would....
 
My idea would be ANPR camera that are already there link direct to a police van (same as the ones that check Tax, Insurance and info on the vehicles ) Pull them over and say you owe X amount...

This is a good idea in general, adding all sort of unpaid fines (including unpaid parking tickets, or the London Congestion Charge, etc) to the list of reasons that flag up an ANPR stop in police vehicles. I believe that at current they only check VED, MOT, and MID?

And this should be nationwide, i.e. not just in the Dartford area.

But regarding the Dartford crossing, from memory you can pay up to the day after, so the ANPR enforcement should start only once a fine has actually been issued (i.e. and not immediately after the crossing).
 

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