Drivers have been hit with a record number of parking fines, it has been reported.
3.57million motorists were understood to have been hit with parking tickets that put £214million in council coffers in one year.
This is said to represent a five-fold increase in fines since 2001 – meaning one in ten drivers in the country had to pay a fine.
Traffic wardens have just been given new powers to issue tickets through the post for offences caught on CCTV, which is likely to push the number of those caught even higher.
The new figures only apply to 159 councils operating so-called ‘decrimanalised parking’ in 2006, where private companies are usually paid to hand out tickets.
If London and areas were the police are still used are included, there would be an estimated eight million parking fines issued in 2006.