Congestion charge at weekends

I just received a penalty notice for driving in the congestion charge area on a Sunday. Apparently they extended it to include weekends this June, and the miserable call centre guy told me this was ‘all over the news and internet’ so I ‘couldn’t possibly have missed it’.
Was anyone else aware of this? They should at least have put leaflets through doors for something like this.
I’m appealing it, but will be interested to find out if anyone else knew this was the case. Seems a dirty trick to me.

It was mentioned in the news a number of times about a month or so ago.

I remember when it was announced - not sure if any signage was put up - guess if you missed it when announced difficult to then pick up.

I’d say it was quite well marketed online and on various road advertising. The road signs would have also been changed overnight.

I would argue it wasn’t well advertised (and online I saw nothing - where would they advertise?).
I heard about it through friends

Congestion charge re-instatement (and extension to weekend and increase to £15) was one of the government’s conditions of the TfL bailout in May https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-grants-transport-for-london-funding-package

Here the Evening Standard article https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/sadiq-khan-congestion-charge-tfl-bailout-government-a4441361.html

The extended congestion charge is really annoying but it was well covered in the news. I had to go in to the city a few Saturdays back, which is usually no bother but instead paid the charge ahead of time online and then drove in.

It’s a shame that the CC doesn’t operate on the same principle as the Dartford Crossing, where on the first missed payment you don’t have to pay a fine, just retrospectively pay the charge itself. That’s always seemed quite sensible to me.

Great suggestion yes, especially for the weekends… “you may not know we recently introduced weekend charging…” and a polite request to pay.

I’m not a driver so not affected by the congestion charge, but clearly remember hearing about the changes to include evenings, weekends and bank holidays. For me to hear about it then it must have been mentioned quite a lot on national and local TV & radio news and websites and/or newspaper websites.

Sounds like its a fair cop, as opposed to a bum rap

Good idea yes. And fair. I’m obviously just out of touch!

It has been well advertised in the news. It’s a terrible idea to have done this when ultimately London needs people to travelling and many are not comfortable going on trains. It’s also extended till 10 pm at night during the week which is killing the west end.

When you also factor in these “social distancing road closures” which are also camera controlled on some roads to issue an automatic fine plus turning bus lanes into cycle lanes you do have to wonder whether the mayor is trying to kill off London altogether.

It’s a fact of life that people will drive, I know we need to try and reduce this but they are going the wrong way about it and are killing businesses and causing far more pollution which will ultimately kill more people than would die from Covid.

My suggestion is you register your vehicle for automatic payment online then you simply don’t need to worry about it and get a statement every month

But doesn’t the automatic payment cost £10 to set up? I looked at this as also have it set up for dartmouth crossing which is great.
A couple of weeks ago I drove back through London on week day as big delay on M25. Missed a turning as got confused on my satnav and 85% certain ended up on congestion charge area for a minute whilst drove round block to leave. No way of finding out if had to pay or not. Either waited for fine which would be reduced to 50% so 80 quid if paid immediately or paid 15 on the day. Toss up of risking it or just paying the day rate. Which is 17.50 if paid after midnight.
My issue was I couldn’t easily see if I should pay it or not. Happy to pay as my mistake but as you say then otherwise full on fine. Seems should be allowed 1 slip up?

Yes you do have to pay an annual fee - but I figured it was worth every penny rather than having to worry about it should I need an urgent dash into the zone and forget to pay.

Hi Jon, I see your single congestion charge penalty notice and raise you 2 more. I’m a new licence holder and driver in London having exchanged my Australian licence for a UK one recently and buying a car. Due to a backlog at DVLA due to covid, the V5C transfer took more than a month to arrive (with incorrect spelling, which is translated on the fine) and through that time I entered the Czone 3 times on weekends thinking there was no charge. The penalty charge notices were sent to the vehicles previous owner. So I had no idea anything was amiss until I received a nice surprise with three £160 fines this week. Like you, I was not aware of these changes, and not being a driver until the 22nd July had no idea the congestion zone times had changed a month earlier. Also, due to the delay in receiving the PCN I went through the zone on consecutive weekends. Had I have received the initial charge for the first weekend’s ‘contravention’ in reasonable time I would not have gone through the following weekend.
TFL phone personnel are entirely unhelpful with a ‘well you drove through, you need to pay’ attitude. I have no problems paying the 15 congestion charge, but it’s a significant amount for an oversight on my behalf confounded by very poor publicity about the change.

You should consider making an appeal to Road User Charging Adjudicators’ Tribunal. You mention enough things such that it sounds like you acted reasonably and in good faith and have been stung.

Wow yes, definitely worse than mine. Good luck appealing.

I have an issue with paying £10 per year, on top of the charge itself, for a computer to take money off me each time I enter the zone. Great idea yes, but there’s no actual labour involved is there? Just another con.

Because computer systems are free? You’re paying for convenience

It’s also ten pounds per car registered.

Having just set this up myself I also note they prefer Direct Debit over a card payment and warn that if your card payment fails for any reason you will get penalties issued. It advises to set text alerts in case of payment problems, as they don’t just enable this by default.

It’s definitely not setup to be customer friendly.

A bit like being charged to use the till in a shop!

That is pretty unbelievable they don’t message if there is a payment issue once it’s setup.

I think they do, but it’s opt-in and not switched-on by default if you want to pay by card.

Still kind of unbelievable.

How do people pay who don’t have smartphones or Internet? Genuine question.

15. Those without Smartphone would still be able to pay the Congestion Charge online, by phone or by post.

Page 3 section 19 (xix) http://content.tfl.gov.uk/report-to-the-mayor.pdf

apparently. Although that is from 2014.

Thanks Clausy.

I’ve now found this on TFL’s website

Phone

UK: 0343 222 2222 (TfL call charges)
International: +44 343 222 2222
Textphone: 020 7649 9123 (if you have impaired hearing)

Lines open:

Monday to Friday: 08:00-20:00
Closed on weekends and bank holidays

It costs £15 if you pay in advance or by midnight on the day or £17.50 if you pay by close of play on the third day. So non smartphone and non Internet payers will be charged £17.50 if they can’t pay by 8pm on the day or have booked their (maybe emergency) visit in advance. If they’re charging people 7 days a week till midnight, then I think the phone lines ought to be open for those periods.

I haven’t tried to see how long it takes to get through.

I don’t want to appear a “smartypants” about this but both my wife and I have worked and socialized in the City/West End ever since the CC was introduced and have never understood why anyone should want to drive into Central London when the public transport is so good and the cost of the CC and parking is so high. Indeed, the only times I have ever paid it have been to collect the case of wine that my wife’s employer handed out as a Christmas bonus - and that was worth it.
Also, it only stretches from Tower Bridge to Vauxhall Bridge east to west and the Elephant
to Kings Cross south to north (all of which are outside it) so it’s quite easy to avoid if you’re travelling beyond it in any direction.

In fact I normally do avoid it easily, but on that day Vauxhall Bridge was unexpectedly closed, so the satnav took us to the next bridge we could cross on, and the problems began.
In fact we only drive anywhere near the congestion charge once or twice a year when visiting Devon, which also adds to being out of the loop about any changes.

Yes, they won’t tell you if you call up and ask. I once drove in to the CC around 6 PM (when that was the end-time) and I wasn’t sure if I needed to pay or not. I decided to wait and see, and got clobbered. I did win an appeal, but can’t remember on what grounds. [edit. I think I argued that it was unreasonable for TFL to withhold information that I had requested, as to whether I owed the charge or not]

Same here - it’s only when the satnav has decided to take me through the congestion charge zone that I’ve driven through there (once down Oxford Street, though late at night so it wasn’t busy).

I very rarely have cause to drive in central London but the satnav is now set to avoid toll-roads, so hopefully won’t catch me out at some random point in the future.

In my set up it then also avoids the Dartford crossing when set to avoid toll roads. It took me quite a while to figure that out this weekend. So giving you the heads up now:) Think there should be differentiation between £2.50 toll and £15 congestion. As things become smarter hopefully can have be more selective.

Waze navigation app allows you to select the various tolls and congestion/ULEZ zones in the UK you wish to be allowed to navigate through. In Settings go to Toll passes & exemptions.

Sorry joncocteau. It seems the wonders of modern technology aren’t always that wonderful. Of course, in the “old days” we’d just have pulled over, cursed the local authority and anyone else that might be vaguely responsible, then fumbled in the glove box for the A-Z and sorted out our own route from the map. Happy days!

Maybe I should give Waze a try again. Thanks for the tips!

I hope you enjoy backstreets

I had to laugh at this - I’ve had so many airport cars where they use Waze religiously and I’ve done some real South London residential sight seeing. I think some people prefer to drive rather than sit in traffic, I’m just not sure it saves any time.

Having said that, in general, I’ve cycled into London (West End, City) so many times in 10 years that I’ve done 25,000 miles of South London roads and now I don’t need GPS - even if I have to take the car I know my way around. Amusingly I forget that some routes don’t work by car (e.g. one way streets that have a reverse bike lane) and get myself stuck.

Oh, it’s still that bad eh? I hear it’s worst in rural areas and Ireland where it likes country tracks for cattle!

I’m still really surprised there’s not a bit more cooperation between satnav and traffic management though. For example, when planning a route, satnav could popup “this route will go through the congestion zone, setup payment now?”, then pre-authorise Google/Apple pay for when you go through it, or allow you to pick an alternative route.

But that would cost TfL money - they’d miss out on all the lovely fines!

I agree with you John it wasnt well advertised. I always listen radio and never heard that CC weekends have changed.
We have find out about it through friends after going out one weekend so awaiting for PCN now. It is annoying as this is very recent change and to be fair should warn people for the first time late payment attemptinstead of issuing PCN

When Ken Livingstone introduced the congestion charge in one interview when asked why it was so difficult to pay he almost admitted that they wanted to collect the fines instead!

Drivers, you need to check this:-

“So TFL have extended Red route bus lane’s operational hours to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from 13th September!”

I don’t know if this is true. But be warned!

And let’s not forget how he quietly altered the traffic light phasing just before the rollout of the new Congestion Charge, in order that the before/after congestion stats would look more favourable.

A TfL spokeswoman said timings have been changed, but for a multitude of reasons, none to do with making congestion charging more agreeable. “What people forget is timings change as many as 40 times a day depending on traffic flows,” she said. “There is a tendency to oversimplify what is going on.”
Previous timings for pedestrian crossing were dangerous, she said, because they did not give people long enough to cross the roads. Timings for pedestrians were being increased in line with national safety guidelines. "These are measures to benefit a wide number of people. “This should be a nice city to walk around and cycle through.”

The allegations in that article are all made by pro car lobby groups like the AA.

As I documented above the weekend charging was a condition imposed by the government as part of the TfL bailout. So both sides are equally guilty of messing things up. At least both Ken and Boris were pro cycling!

From the 13th September, car users will need to stay out of red route bus lanes 24/7

Why can’t they ban taxis from using bus lanes - it encourages people to use public transport cutting pollution AND makes them run quicker making everyone happier. Also makes it marginally safer for cyclists

Last taxi I used in London was in March this year. It was 100% electric.

Was it an LEVC?

That’s a hybrid and unfortunately not a proper 100% electric car. It only has 80.6 miles of electric range.

If, on the other hand, it was a Nissan Dynamo, it was 100% electric, but these are far less common than LEVCs

No idea, it was an electric black taxi and it went like the clappers.

Next time we meet let me take you for a drive in the Model S and I’ll redefine “like the clappers” for you

Personally I think of taxis as part of the public transport network. Taxis can particularly extend the reach of trains, conveniently covering the first or last mile of a journey. They can be particularly helpful if you have luggage or a disability. Hence why taxi ranks are often found at railway stations I guess.

In a transport network which often isn’t terribly well joined up (either in location or timing), taxis can fill the gaps.

Like ‘public schools’ are part of the education system - open to all

That is an argument black cabs drivers use and it is particularly bad when you look at the reality. These people supposedly travelled by train with heavy luggage - but the tube suddenly becomes impossible to travel with the same luggage?
Disabled (ie mobility impaired people) use taxis approximately twice as much as non-impaired people - but still make a tiny proportion of the actual users of taxis.

I agree with the sentiment that taxis add to the public transport network - but only if you are out of central London - within Central London they are just adding to traffic

Of course none of that gives a reason why they should be allowed in bus lanes - if there is a bus lane it implies there is a sufficient quantity of buses and the taxis aren’t supplementing the transport network - they are slowing down the public transport network

I do occasionally use taxis and appreciate there is a position for them, but they shouldn’t be given a priority over everyone else just because they cost more

In central London I guess black cabs are trying to fill a niche by providing direct and fast transport from point to point in more comfort than a busy bus or tube. Like the congestion charge itself, you pay for the convenience if you want to use it.

It’s certainly not impossible to get luggage on the tube, and up and down escalators, but when it is busy it’s often not particularly pleasant traveling even without baggage.

you are paying to inconvenience other people!

Well I am not, because I very rarely use cabs, let alone in central London.

But if we are being hypothetical, I think the people on the rush hour tube and/or buses would prefer I took my luggage in a taxi rather than getting all in the way and blocking things up for everybody.

So I am not only paying for my own convenience, but making things nicer for others too

Your hypothetical luggage takes up the space of 1 persons space on a tube - you hypothetical taxi slows down 1-2 buses containing 40-80 passengers by 20-30sec (13-40 mins). Taxis really do make a difference

By that logic we should ban bikes from bus lanes too, and definitely the rickshaws

Also each tube train can carry around 1000 people (source)! My hypothetical luggage jamming the doors for just a few seconds wastes far more total time than a few little buses, and that’s before I’ve blocked the bottom of the escalator when my suitcase fell over again!!!

Bikes don’t block the road when travelling (buses can pass them) or stop on red routes to pick up passengers (!!!) - which taxis are allowed to do - even when blocking lanes (also Ubers are allowed to no matter what black cabs say!)

Also your hypothetical luggage jamming is probably because you hypothetically didn’t get on quick enough (technically a crime!) or hypothetically didn’t use the genuine lifts - just like the signs say you should!

The rickshaws can be a big problem for everyone (yet to see them actually obey the rules of the road) - but I did see some a few weeks ago when I actually got out of FH had very prominent price lists - have they been forced to do that now?

What was the outcome of contesting in the end?

Yes it was in the press. There was quite a row about it because they extended the hours during the day and extended it to weekends just at the time that everyone was being told to go back to work, and a lot of people were understandably furious that at a time when the advice was to avoid public transport, the costs for driving into town were suddenly being hiked up and the charging period was being extended. TfL and the Mayor got a lot of flack for it.

Anyone who wasn’t sure and looked at TfL website would have seen it, but of course if you didn’t know there were changes you’d have no reason to go to the website for a journey on a Sunday.

Therein lies a very sorry tale… I contested it using the online form. Didn’t hear anything til last week, when I got a letter saying I owe £240 for non-payment! They say there’s no record of me contesting it, but I definitely did. I have absolutely no proof though. So they told me now I had to send them a letter explaining what’s happened and giving my initial reasoning for contesting again. It’s bloody stressful. I’ll phone again later this week to make sure they actually received the letter. I should have sent it guaranteed delivery I guess but I begrudge any more pennies spent on this.

You can ask at the Post Office for proof of posting without any charge. Obviously, you need to hand the letter over the counter to get this.

I had a letter ‘not received’ in a similar situation - the annoying thing was that I sent a paper letter to be awkward, if I had used the online form I would have had proof of submission. If you call you should record the call. I use BoldBeast android app for this.

Yes, go for the ‘Special Delivery Guaranteed’ option.

I recently sent something Royal Mail ‘1st Class Signed For’ from FH Post Office and it was totally useless - the thing wasn’t valuable or urgent but I wanted to be sure it got there. Unfortunately it disappeared without a trace and Royal Mail couldn’t tell me anything about it (it’s not tracked, though I do have proof of postage).

After 2 weeks I could have requested a refund but for a few quid it’s more hassle than its worth.

Thanks for the tip

I didn’t realise it was now charged at weekends too.

The whole thing is a mess. Like others have said, it should be like the Dartford crossing.

They bank on people being so stressed driving through London, that they are too busy trying not to hit bikers/pedestrians/speed cameras - that they miss any signage.

It’s not a mess. It’s for the relief and benefit of most people within the zone. From the TfL website:

• We’ve introduced temporary changes to the daily charge, operating hours and days in response to the coronavirus pandemic. This is to help reduce traffic levels in central London and enable more journeys to be made safely by foot or bike, while keeping the bus network reliable*

And if you are driving within the speed limit you don’t need to look out for speed cameras and have more time for signage. Otherwise get Google Maps to look out for you.

I can’t recall whether this was a TfL initiative or directed by the Dot. Anybody?

Stuart

I would hope that anyone who is too stressed to drive in an dense urban area should consider alternate forms of transport.

I understand the changes were a condition of the monies received from DoT last year.

I think we can have a bit more sympathy here. Driving in central London can be stressful for many - even if you are professional driver - I think most of us will have experienced the rantings of a stressed taxi driver of some form or another at some point (even if not their passenger!).

That said, the changes to the congestion charging were advertised in advance (even covered here), but it’s still going to catch out occasional drivers, or people that haven’t ventured through London for some time. At least once anyway…

TfL do offer AutoPay which might be what you are after, see here for details: Auto Pay - Transport for London

Oh, and welcome to the forum @olly_dearden

I’m not sure you what you mean. Stress can be a good thing which hones the senses. But if someone is too stressed as they cannot track pedestrians, cyclists, other vehicles AND read important road signage then they should rethink how they travel. This is about road safety for all users.

I can only speak for myself in saying that on more than one occasion (two in total) I have found myself a little inside the congestion zone without planning to be there, and I have had to pay the charge to avoid a hefty fine for my mistake.
The combination of reliance on sat nav and avoiding road works that the sat nav doesn’t always know about, makes this an easy mistake to make while you keep an eye on every other road signage (traffic lights, filter lanes, bus lane timings, changing speed limits, normal directional signage, diversion signage, congestion zone).
I rarely drive in Central London so I don’t always know the best route and I used to use Blackfriars Bridge at weekends to go through the City, where there is almost no traffic at weekends. Now the best route to North London provided for me by my sat nav is via Clapham, Wembley and the North Circular. It adds 5 miles to the 15 mile journey and probably uses more fuel and creates more pollution but only in the suburbs of London - so that’s good, isn’t it?

Agree that you don’t want to either be too stressed or too relaxed when driving.

It’s a lot easier driving a route you are familiar with regularly but many people don’t drive around central London that often. Sat nav does make it a bit easier as it often warns you which lane you are looking for but sometimes trying to see it ‘on the ground’ is complex particularly when there’s lots else going on.

To be honest, I’d rather people looked out for vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists and be sensible with speed rather than spotting every congestion zone sign. There’s one just outside my office which is the grand total of 10m inside so to visit to pick anything up used to be free at weekends. Now it’s chargeable for the grand total of about 200m (to get back out via the one-way system) and red routes all around so you can’t even stop somewhere nearby.