The signs that civic society in this country is disintegrating grow more apparent by the week. In a year which has witnessed the arrival in earnest of a shoplifting epidemic, the continued normalisation of fare-dodging on London’s train and tube network, and a surge in fuel theft at garage forecourts, it now transpires that drivers are increasingly ignoring traffic lights.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, between 2022 and the end of last year, there was a 61 per cent increase in the number of drivers caught going through red lights. Across the 29 police forces that supplied figures to a freedom of information request, this figure rose from over 85,000 to more than 137,000. As with shoplifting, the problem is likely to be worse than figures suggest, because many police forces did not provide data and less than 2 per cent of this country’s traffic lights are monitored by cameras able to issue penalties.

People are asking themselves: why should I be the only mug doing the right thing?

People are asking themselves: why should I be the only mug doing the right thing?

Road users flouting red lights have long been a problem when it comes to cyclists. Many of their numbers have for decades behaved this way in the knowledge that they will mostly go unchallenged, let alone be prosecuted. So it’s hardly........

© The Spectator