Sofa salesman Jamie Foster, 30, was driving home in his Ford Fiesta when the same camera caught him speeding—not once, but four times.
Consultant anaesthetist Dr Subha Bagchi, 52, was travelling to the hospital where he worked in his Lexus when he was also recorded at the location four times.
Coleen Blackburn, 50, who has long-term health problems, was driving her Mini cautiously after an accident when she too was photographed speeding. She was caught once—but her husband received a ticket the following week.
All four had previously clean driving licences. None realised that small signs had warned motorists the long-standing 70mph limit had been reduced to 40mph.
Despite that, each received a speeding ticket after being captured by cameras installed in 2023 at the request of Transport for London (TfL) on the eastbound A20 near Sidcup, shortly before the road leaves south-east London and enters Kent.
All feared the consequences. Some worried about losing their jobs, while Mrs Blackburn faced the prospect of further restricting her already limited mobility. They are just a small fraction of the drivers—estimated at 100,000—caught at the same location.
The cases have become the focus of a growing controversy that critics say has badly damaged the reputation of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has long been accused of taking an anti-motorist approach.
Most drivers simply paid the £100 fine and accepted three penalty points—the reporter included. But others, angered by temporary speed signs they considered too small and easy to miss, connected through Facebook and decided to challenge the enforcement.
The measuring tape shows the sign is 45cm wide, despite the recommended width of 90cm
Jamie Foster with his mother Shirley. Mr Foster received four speeding tickets over Christmas week on the A20 after TfL reduced the speed limit
A vehicle lost control on the dual carriageway during heavy rain, spun around and hit a van entering the forecourt
In September, 78-year-old John Abbott became the first prominent challenger to take his case to court when he contested his January 2024 speeding conviction at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court, risking substantial legal costs.
As a former Bexley council employee, he had experience of introducing temporary traffic orders and believed TfL had failed to follow the correct procedure on the A20.
Campaigners celebrated when Judge Sarah Bergstrom agreed and quashed his conviction.
She ruled that “the temporary speed restriction was unlawful” from the outset and said that “no properly directed magistrates’ court could safely convict” in those circumstances.
The judge’s questioning revealed that TfL had not properly authorised the speed-limit reduction. Its legal department had reportedly been informed of the issue as early as 2024.
Despite the ruling, Mayor Khan has rejected formal calls for an inquiry. TfL has also refused to overturn the convictions, remove the penalty points or refund the estimated 100,000 drivers who received fines.
The fallout has allegedly included higher insurance premiums, lost jobs, mortgage defaults, broken marriages and even an attempted suicide. One motorist is said to have received 11 tickets and accumulated 33 penalty points.
The Mayor and TfL maintain that the large number of tickets and fines was justified on road-safety grounds.
Last year, the Mayor said, “let’s wait and see what the Crown Court judge concludes”, appearing to suggest that prosecutions could be reconsidered after the ruling. Yet he and TfL have since refused to change course.
Critics say that stance is unsurprising from a mayor who has introduced 20mph limits across large parts of London and expanded costly Ulez charges for drivers of older vehicles.
However, there is no question that safety was a concern on this section of the A20, which slopes down towards a BP garage.
Sir Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, poses for a photograph following a Bloomberg Television interview at City Hall
Videos recorded before the speed limit was suddenly reduced show heavy rain covering the two lanes towards Kent. On several occasions, cars aquaplaned from the fast lane and crashed into the garage.
One collision caused £100,000 worth of damage. It was sheer luck that nobody was killed.
What Our News Outlet can reveal, however, is that online records show Bromley Council spent a decade urging TfL to clear the drains and address flooding on the road.
The work was not carried out, and the drains became progressively more blocked. Complaints from the garage were also reportedly ignored.
Among the most prominent campaigners is energy businessman John Dunlop, 56, from Chislehurst in south-east London. He runs the A20 Justice Alliance with Mrs Blackburn.
Mr Dunlop was making one of his regular journeys to Gatwick Airport when he was caught driving his Volvo at 47mph in the dark at 6am one morning in March 2024.
That ticket marked the beginning of what he describes as a “Kafka-esque” ordeal involving dozens of Freedom of Information requests, repeated approaches to politicians and detailed research into highway regulations. The dispute is still unresolved.
Mr Dunlop said: “TfL always says the speed restriction was all about ‘safety first’. But here’s the catch—the aquaplaning problem on the A20 was caused by TfL itself.
“One of the many FoI requests made about this issue showed that TfL’s roads contractor, FM Conway, told the council it needed to address ‘a historic drainage problem on the A20 Sidcup bypass at Swanley Services’. The drains had not been cleared properly.
“That is why the road was flooding. TfL caused the problem. Only after ten years did they describe it as an ‘emergency’.”
Mr Dunlop has a business to run and children to raise, but the campaign has forced him to become an expert in a series of highly technical subjects.
“I’m appalled that I’m now an expert in this,” he said. “But the Department for Transport’s traffic signs manual says temporary speed-limit signs should be 900mm—about a yard—wide, so motorists accustomed to the normal limit can see them. TfL instead followed the guidance for permanent signs, using signs that were only 300mm—one foot—wide, and sometimes 450mm.
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“They are supposed to be placed on both sides of the road as well. But these tiny signs were almost always positioned only on the left.
“I wonder whether anyone at TfL actually has a driving licence. Why put a 300mm sign on a 70mph road? When you are travelling at speed, you barely notice them—especially when they are two yards into the verge—until the police letter arrives.”
Research by Mr Dunlop and other campaigners found that Bromley Council first raised the A20 flooding problem in 2013. TfL did not address it until 2023, when it reduced the speed limit under an “emergency notice”, a process that did not require public consultation.
A car passes through a flooded section of the A20 near Ashford in Kent. Storm Chandra caused travel disruption and flooding as strong winds and heavy rain hit much of the UK
Mr Dunlop said the issue only came to light during Mr Abbott’s Crown Court case, when the judge noted that the TfL document identifying who was authorised to make traffic orders was dated December 2025.
“She told them to produce the document from October 2023, when the scheme actually began,” he said. “That document did not give authority to Gary Oliver, ‘Area Manager South, Asset Operations’, who was said to have authorised the A20 scheme.”
Mr Dunlop also says no one has confirmed the exact number of drivers fined. The commonly cited figure is around 100,000, but if the initial rate of 7,000 tickets a week continued, the total could be as high as a third of a million.
Most motorists, including me—after 25 years with a clean licence—simply paid the £100 fine, accepted the three points and absorbed the increased insurance costs. Mr Dunlop, however, decided the matter was worth fighting.
He became convinced that the signs were too small and too low, and grew increasingly angry as his investigation uncovered more details.
“What really started to infuriate me was that, for months, nobody would show me the Traffic Order under which I was being prosecuted,” he said.
“When an organisation such as TfL exercises what are known as ‘delegated powers’ without democratic oversight, there should at least be transparency.
“But there wasn’t, even though perhaps 100,000 people had been issued with speeding fines on one short stretch of road.
“It is absurd and Kafka-esque that people could be prosecuted without being able to see the law they were accused of breaking. But I need to drive to collect my children from school and for work, so I have spent £10,000 and several years pursuing this.”
Mr Dunlop’s campaign first led to his own trial at Bromley magistrates’ court in August 2025.
He denied speeding but was found guilty. After the magistrates accepted TfL’s position, his fine, costs and victim surcharge increased from £100 to £800.
He is not the only motorist who remains angry. Fiesta driver Mr Foster, 28, from the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, was among the earliest people caught and says the consequences continue to affect him.
He normally worked at the Sofology furniture store in Aylesford, Kent, but was asked to cover shifts at the company’s Orpington branch, close to the A20, over Christmas 2023.
In January 2024, he received speeding tickets for his rush-hour journeys home on December 28, December 29, New Year’s Eve and January 2. His recorded speeds ranged from 47mph to 58mph.
“It was a massive shock,” Mr Foster said. “If I had accepted the 12 points I was facing, I would have lost my licence for six months—and my job, because I could not have travelled to work. I had never been to court before and suddenly felt like a criminal, so I asked for mitigation.
“The Bromley magistrates effectively told me, ‘You’re not an important person; you don’t work for the NHS.’ But they reduced the points to ten. I was given a £650 fine and costs, along with a 28-day driving ban.”
His mother, Shirley, drove him to work during the ban. The points continue to affect his employment prospects.
“I applied to become a Volvo salesman last week,” Mr Foster said. “But the job involves driving customers. When they saw the points on my licence, they said they could not take my application any further.”
Mayor Khan has no plans to hold an inquiry, while TfL says Mr Abbott’s Crown Court appeal does not establish a legal precedent.
Neither intends to overturn the fines or compensate motorists for additional insurance costs and lost employment. Anyone wishing to challenge a conviction must do so at their own expense.
The stance follows the Mayor’s decision to veto a cross-party London Assembly motion calling for an independent investigation into the A20 affair. That motion had passed by 16 votes to three 18 months ago.
The vote was held again on Thursday and passed by 18 votes to zero, with the Green Party abstaining.
Even Labour members who support Mayor Khan backed the motion, which was proposed by London Tory transport spokesman Thomas Turrell of “Justice for Londoners”.
Gareth Bacon, the Conservative MP for Orpington, whose constituency borders the affected section of the A20, said: “This is morally outrageous. But it is all part of Sadiq Khan’s war on drivers.”
A spokeswoman for the Mayor said last night: “It is incorrect to suggest that the Mayor or TfL misled anybody in relation to these fines, and TfL remains confident that enforcement of the speed limit was necessary given the safety risks.”
The Mayor and TfL say that “no wrongdoing was alleged by the court” and maintain that the orders reducing the speed limit were lawful.
TfL added last night: “All drains on TfL roads during this period received an annual clean, with additional cleaning requested when conditions required it. TfL increased the gully-cleansing regime here to every six months in 2023.”
That effectively doubled the scheduled drain cleaning only when the speed-limit reduction was introduced.
Mr Dunlop and Mrs Blackburn, who said she did not see any 40mph signs while driving at 46.8mph to her son’s sports match from her home in Greenwich in January 2024, are due to appeal against their convictions together at the Crown Court next year.
Mrs Blackburn said: “Sometimes I wish I had simply paid the £100 fine instead of spending years making FoI requests, appealing to the Information Commissioner and paying £10,000.
“But I want the points removed—and I want an investigation into the entire affair.”
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