BUSINESSES faced a bill of more than £8m last year from company car and van drivers racking up motoring fines.

And according to Lex Autolease, the cost of driving offences is soaring – up 15 per cent in 2013 despite the number of offences only increasing by 2.7 per cent.

Lex Autolease compiled its annual Company Driver Fines and Penalties survey from data taken from its fleet of 275,000 vehicles.

These show that company car drivers clocked up 124,430 driving offences in the last year, but the big increase in costs was caused by a spike in the number of drivers caught using bus lanes – up more than 25 per cent from 11,732 in 2012 to 14,698 last year.

The question is whether the greater number of offences is due to sliding driving standards, or greater efforts by cash-strapped local authorities to catch offenders. 

According to Lex Autolease Head of Fleet Operations Guy Mason, the rise in bus lane offences could suggest that many drivers are using them as a shortcut to complete their journeys as quickly as possible. 

“If this is the case then businesses need to discourage drivers from behaving in an irresponsible fashion,” Mason says.     

 “However, many company drivers believe they have been penalised unfairly due to inadequate or misleading signage and increased surveillance by local authorities capturing those that briefly strayed into a bus lane. 

“These factors, rather than a disregard for the rules, may explain the 25 per cent spike.”

There is better news in the survey too. General traffic-related offences, such as entering a box junction or stopping in a red route, fell by 17 per cent, from 20,582 in 2012 to 17,080 in 2013.

More serious offences such as speeding, dangerous driving and driving whilst on a mobile phone, which carry penalty points, are up, but by only two per cent to 34,495 fines in 2013 from 33,930 in 2012.