Letter: Yellow Box Fines Are Just a Money-raising Opportunity for SCC

Published on: 27 Jun, 2025
Updated on: 27 Jun, 2025

The yellow box junctions at the Dennis roundabout. Image Apple maps

From Gavin Morgan

In response to: Drivers Caught in Yellow Box Junctions at the Dennis Roundabout Paid £81k to SCC

As you have reported, a recent RAC Freedom of Information request revealed that the yellow boxes at Dennis Roundabout are bringing in more fines for Surrey County Council than any other Surrey junction. In 2024 the Dennis Roundabout yielded £81,445 from 4,250 fines.

I struggle to see how this is anything other than Surrey County Council trying to raise more money. The evidence speaks for itself. A spokesperson for Surrey County Council said “There are two yellow boxes on the [Dennis] roundabout.

“Prior to applying for moving traffic enforcement powers, we carried out a preliminary survey of these yellow boxes, which found that there were potentially about 3,000 contraventions a week on each of them.”

The word “potentially” is revealing because the evidence suggests they cannot count. 6,000 contraventions a week across the two boxes is 850 a day. And yet figures from the Freedom of Information request by the RAC the Dennis Roundabout show that only 12 people a day actually received penalty notices. ( see https://uk.news.yahoo.com/yellow-box-junction-fines-worst-rac-230151093.html?guccounter=1)

To put this in context, figures from the Department of Transport show that about 27,000 vehicles use the road leading up the roundabout every day in 2023. If the real numbers of people contravening the yellow box are so small there is clearly not a problem with drivers but clearly a good opportunity to get money out of them. (see https://mabcu.uk/traffic/location-8031-a322-worplesdon-road-guildford-surrey)

Meanwhile we all have to live with Surrey County Council’s failure to sort out the traffic in Guildford. The other day I could not get onto the gyratory system because every time the lights changed traffic on the gyratory filled up the spaces the other side of the yellow box. So when the lights went green for me I could not move.

The only practical way through the box would have been to move as soon as the lights changed and hope a space appeared by the time I got through the box. But having been recently fined I did not risk it so we all sat there.

My own experience confirms my feelings that Surrey County Council is more interested in the fines than traffic solutions. I was in Kingston and the traffic was moving. I left a big gap in front of me for the box but a car pulled out in front of me as I entered the box and stopped just as he exited the box. So I was fined.

I was sent a video showing I stopped for literally two seconds. I appealed and pointed this out but was still fined. A friend told me his video showed that his car was only slightly overhanging the yellow box and yet he also got fined.

If this is the sort of draconian money grabbing policies we can expect from the new unitary authority I hope everyone sits up and starts voting.

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