Box junction crackdown

Motorists who cause gridlock by obstructing yellow box junctions face being caught by a growing network of CCTV cameras.

Thousands of drivers have already been fined up to £100 for blocking junctions in a trial launched last year.

Today the Association of London Government will recommend in a major report that the scheme is expanded.

The report is expected to show that the trial carried out by Transport for London and six local authorities - Camden, Ealing, Croydon , Newham, Hammersmith and Fulham and Wandsworth - has had a significant impact in keeping London's congested roads moving.

Motorists caught driving on to yellow box junctions within the trial area before their exit routes are clear have been liable for a fine.

And the threat of a penalty has had a salutary effect:

Expanding the scheme across London will result in hundreds more junctions being monitored by CCTV cameras.

Motoring organisations support the proposals, saying the scheme has already improved traffic flow, particularly as the identity of most junctions being monitored has never been officially released.

Edmund King, of the RAC Foundation, said: "Rolling this out across London will be a good move, as long as the councils show some flexibility in enforcement.

"There are examples where motorists have to move into a box to let an emergency vehicle past, or even instances where yellow box markings are badly faded. The councils must ensure that enforcement in these cases is fair." The yellow-box monitoring scheme has not been without its teething problems.

Embarrassingly for TfL, it initially found that one in 10 of the offenders it was catching were its own bus drivers.

In the early days of the scheme, at least two TfL buses were caught blocking a junction every hour and more than 200 fines had to be issued to bus companies.

But within a few weeks, buses were responsible for only 0.03 offences - a drop of 84 per cent.