DRIVERS FINED FOR UNPAID DART CHARGES DESPITE NEVER USING THE BRIDGE
Drivers who have never used the Dartford Crossing are receiving fines for unpaid Dart Charges.
The cause of the issue appears to be that the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras are misreading licence plates.
It comes after a string of problems arose when the provider for the Dart Charge system was switched in July 2023.
Anne Marie Kenyon, from Bury, Greater Manchester, received two fines through her letterbox, one in April and a further one in June this year.
But the deputy headteacher was left bewildered because she had never even used the crossing.
The fines were for cars with number plates beginning with DY and OV - Ms Kenyon's licence plate starts with DV.
She said the images provided on the penalty charge notice as proof were 'quite blurred and hard to read'.
Dealing with the first fine was easy because it was during the Easter holidays and she could phone the helpline straight away. She said the second fine was 'so frustrating' to sort out and felt 'the way [she] was treated was poor'.
The fines were cancelled but she is worried it could keep happening.
The situation was more complex for Eleanor Vousden, who lives over 90 miles away in Berkshire but visits her parents in Dartford, Kent.
She received a notification that she had used the crossing on Christmas Eve which she knew was false.
The car in the pictures was a silver Honda Jazz and looked very similar to her silver Honda CRG. Even the licence plates were identical up until the last letter - hers ended with G and the last letter on the other car's plate was a C.
She said her experience with contacting Dart Charge was good and the false crossing fee was cancelled immediately. But it made her wonder 'how often such mistakes occur and whether people do bother to check, if they can't remember where they were'.
The system provider for managing 'road user charging' on the crossing is Conduent Public Sector UK Ltd, which won the £150m contract - external from National Highways - in 2021.
The contract specifies that Conduent Public Sector UK Ltd provides and operates 'roadside equipment to enable detection and identification of vehicles'.
A National Highways spokesperson told the BBC: 'In some cases, manual checks are needed to make sure crossing details are accurate. This can delay those crossings being visible on the website.
'However, customers can still pay for these crossings at any time up to midnight the following day, whether the crossing is visible online or not.
'The easiest option for customers is to pay every time and on time. We've made this easy by offering different ways to pay which suit everyone's needs.
'We want to make paying as stress-free as possible and limit any additional admin for our customers.
'In a minority of circumstances, penalty charges are issued in error. Where this happens, the charge will be cancelled as soon as a customer contacts us to let us know they are not the registered keeper of the vehicle.'
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