Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been urged to help thousands of motorists who were given speeding tickets due to a fake sign on a busy road in south-east London.

Drivers received automatic fines and penalty points for violating the speed limit on the A20 near Sidcup after an “unauthorised third party” installed a 50mph sign on 24 January. TfL had temporarily reduced the speed limit from 70mph to 40mph due to frequent flooding, says Yahoo News, in a follow-up to a story we covered in February.

Although the Metropolitan Police acknowledged the sign should not have been there, they claimed it “would not have impacted the enforcement of the 40mph average speed limit.” In January, Conservative MP Louie French and 11 other MPs, wrote a letter to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, asking him to cancel the fines just before the police denied the request to waive the penalties.

French, MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, continued his protest at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday (6 March) and demanded that TfL, the Met Police, and Khan cancel the motorists’ punishments. “This has left many drivers including carers, emergency service workers and teachers at risk of losing their licences and jobs,” he raged.

The PM said he understood the concerns drivers had over the ongoing issue and would organise a meeting between French and the “responsible minister” to discuss them.

(File picture – Yay Images)