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Why do we pay to catch tax dodgers, but not dangerous drivers?
March 12, 2025
Imagine walking down the street and spotting a driver scrolling through their phone, barely paying attention to the road. It’s a scene so common in Britain that it barely raises an eyebrow. Despite harsher penalties, using a mobile while driving remains endemic, putting cyclists and pedestrians at daily risk.
Yet while the UK is happy to financially reward those who expose tax fraud, there’s no equivalent system to incentivise reporting life-threatening driving behaviour. Under new Treasury proposals, whistleblowers who report tax evasion could receive up to 25% of the additional revenue collected. In the US, similar schemes have netted individual informants millions. But why does Britain prioritise catching tax dodgers over dangerous drivers?
The logic behind paying tax whistleblowers is clear: it helps the authorities catch wrongdoing that might otherwise go undetected. But road crime is also under-enforced, thanks to overstretched police forces and dwindling traffic patrols. With mobile phone offences now harder to detect, could financial incentives encourage safer streets?
New York has already put this approach into action. Under its Citizens Air Complaint Program, residents who report lorries idling for more than three minutes receive a quarter of the fine - often around $87 (£66). The scheme has been so successful that one participant reportedly earned over $64,000 over the course of one year.
The UK already has a growing culture of crowdsourced road justice. The Metropolitan Police’s online portal has processed over 10,000 reports of dangerous driving, leading to thousands of prosecutions. But imagine the impact if those who submitted footage were financially rewarded - say, £50 per successful prosecution of a driver using their phone. Such a scheme could be self-financing, with fines covering the administration costs and rewards.
For those who argue against incentivising road safety reporting, it’s worth asking: why is financial motivation acceptable when tackling tax fraud but not when saving lives? If we want drivers to take the law seriously, we need a raft of measures – including meaningful deterrents.
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