Thousands of motorists escape penalty points

TENS of thousands of motorists have escaped penalty points while many more were not issued with a summons despite receiving a notice, the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report revealed yesterday.

Since penalty points were first introduced in late 2002, more than 65,000 images from fixed cameras were “spoiled” because of difficulties identifying registration numbers or due to technical difficulties.

The CAG report also revealed in the first 14 months of operation huge numbers of motorists did not bother to pay their fines and less than one in five of those then received summonses.