I've been here myself and I feel your pain. I always wait until the end of the white line now, annoying as it is. Most of the time I end up with another driver of undisclosed but predictable flavour sat on my arse gesticulating wildly and squeezing past as I wait sort of just on the line with the left signal on but ultimately, I know that in a few days time he is going to get a letter.

I console myself by (a) always using the local bus lanes to progress my journey outside the hours of operation (noone else ever bothers - great Zil lanes) and (b) never giving way to buses if there is a bus lane they can use, unless there is real possibility of panel damage

Sometimes if there is a bus in the bus lane it is even possible to use the bus to screen you from the camera ... but I don't advocate this practice even though as an occasional user of the same bus route I know the on board cameras can't possibly get your reg

Is 'nearly at the end of the bus lane' as good a defence as 'nearly under the drink drive limit' or 'nearly under the speed limit' or 'I nearly paid all my taxes'...?

Two foot or two miles of bus lane: you were nicked, pay up and get on with life.

I am not "Bleating" on about anything I was merely asking a question. But people like you and others are turning this topic into something more than it is. As for learning to drive Don't question my driving abilities when you know absolutely nothing about me or my abilities. If you want to start talking like that I could turn around and say all those "nobs come streaking up the bus lane" Are probably doing perfectly legal manoeuvres its just you have not actually looked at the times the bus lane is in effect which quite often is only a few hours a day. You probably don't even know there are signs up telling you the times. And I was not streaking up anywhere I was doing something in a perfectly safe manner.

As for
Well yes in a lot of circumstances it is to be honest. In most or a lot of rules there is a leeway. Speeding which you mention there is something like a 10% (I forget the exact figure) tolerance also If I am proving to pay my taxes and have paid most of them then I will not be just slapped with a fine the case will be looked into fairly. Drinking on the other hand is far more serious and very likely to cause death hardly the same as cutting in a few meters before the end of a bus lane.

It seems a lot of you people are getting far more 'worked' up about this than I myself am. Which actually i find quite amusing.

By the way Thanks to all those who have given sensible replies, good or bad it's all good
But those who are getting on their high horses its you that needs to get the life!!

The leeway isn't written in the law (10% for speeding etc doesn't exist - there's a line in the sand & that's it as far as the law is concerned). The choice in relation to discretion being applied lays with those who decide whether to report/prosecute. If they've sent you the ticket they've decided not to allow discretion.

Think of all the lives saved by the important extension of that bus lane beyond the 'natural' break of the road entering just prior to its stupid final end.

Just out of interest who exactly advises on the sort of idiocy that extends the bus lane beyond that junction?

Don't the police advise on this, don't they (whoever it is) have any common-sense at all?

Congestion causes frustration, the sort of frustration that this configuration right across numerous cities must cause accidents due to impatience yet all that happens is instead of the obvious idiocy being addressed and improved, you simply get a fine through the post.

I'd love to know the name of the idiot or the idiot body that can't be trusted with even the most stark example of stupidity.

You'll have to pay the fine, and add a further incremental lament at the thought that the system/authority is manned to the gunnels with the worthless and dumb.

So what!

You don't need a bus lane to run up to a bus stop do you!

The totally inconsequential hold up 'if' the bus stops there is as nothing to the extension, which is permanent and thereby I stand on my assertion that there is little or no joined up thinking on this and likely thousands of similar road painted pictures of the collective moron at work in some building somewhere which is paid for by the public purse for the sole purpose, it seems, to frustrate and cause delay.

There is little excuse, considering just how smart humans can be for such authorities to revel in their collective stupidity and then compound it with petty-minded fines upon the very people that pay them for the express of NOT doing this.

In-ex-cuse-able.

You didn't read the OP, did you?

It was here:

Basically he couldn't be arsed to wait a couple of seconds for the left had lane to become available so decided that the Law no longer applied to him as he could use the bus lane as a short-cut up to the junction.

Looking at the picture:



It appears that he's got inpatient behind the 4x4 which is indicating a right turn, and decided to enter the bus lane even earlier than he claims in order to not get held up by the 4x4 and beat the other traffic to the junction.

Frankly, trying to contest this is ridiculous as it's so obvious what the reality of the situation is from the pictures and the statements made by the OP.

You are no where near the end of the bus lane so stop moaning and pay up. It's hardly inconspicuous in its markings yet you are fully in it.