Avon and Somerset Police has obtained more than £12.5million in fines from uninsured drivers since 2012, according to a new study. It ranks ninth in a list of police forces in the UK.
The average fine given is £405, 8.5% less than the UK average (£443) and 6.25% less than its neighbouring authority, Devon and Cornwall (£432). According to the study, carried out by Confused.com, Avon and Somerset Police has issued 48,703 fines in total since 2012, 38% more than the UK average (30,166).
In comparison, since 2012 the Metropolitan Police (which came top of the list) has collected £75,756,926 in fines from uninsured drivers, more than double the amount collected by West Yorkshire, which placed second in the list (£31,946,116). In total, 220,694 fines were handed out by the Met over the past decade, over 190,000 more than the average number of fines given across all police authorities analysed (30,166).
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The purpose of the research was to uncover the police authorities with the lowest volume of insurance-related driving offences and their cost in fines.
To do this, experts evaluated the number of fines given in each police authority between 2012-2021 for insurance-related offences, to create an “average fines per capita” evaluation for each region based on their population size.
The list of the 10 police forces which collected the most from uninsured drivers is as follows (written as police force name, total fines given between 2012 and 2021 and total fine amount between 2012 and 2021):
- Metropolitan, 220,694, £75,756,926
- West Yorkshire, 101,859, £31,946,116
- West Midlands, 60,228, £23,433,073
- South Wales, 77,907, £18,628,716
- Sussex, 12,183, £17,840,470
- Greater Manchester, 45,205, £13,541,311
- Hertfordshire, 53,176, £13,108,601
- West Mercia, 49,036, £12,981,571
- Avon and Somerset, 48,730, £12,555,191
- Lancashire, 35,540, £12,487,794
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