More than $5 million was accumulated in traffic fines last year, according to Minister of Home Affairs, David Burch.

In the Senate yesterday, Senator David Burch said there were almost 38,000 parking tickets issued and more than 16,000 other traffic offences last year that would total more than $5.1 million in Government revenues.

To ensure that Government received these revenues in the future, Sen. Burch said, they would be working towards an automated system.

He said: "Will be working with Magistrates' Court to install an automated system. It will be fully employed by next month."

The problem of unpaid tickets stretches back years. In 2004, The Royal Gazette revealed that hundreds of thousands of dollars were outstanding due to a failure to bring offenders before the courts.

Figures in 2007 then revealed Government had lost almost $2.5 million in three years by allowing 49,000 tickets to go unpaid. And last year it was revealed that from Magistrates' Court computer records, there were 50,727 parking tickets issued Island-wide from January 2008 to June 2009.

Even six months after their issuance there remained 23,333 unpaid a total of $1,166,650 in Government revenue.

In March, Government introduced online payment of parking tickets as from April 1, but critics said this was pointless as there was no sanction for non-payment.

Government Senator Walton Brown said he was personally aware of the difficulty in paying traffic fines and wondered why the unpaid tickets couldn't be added to driver's licence.

He said: "When it comes to the issue of traffic offences you get called to court for speeding ut not for parking tickets. You get arrested for violating an order for court.

"For parking tickets why not attach them to the licence and you cannot renew it if you don't pay for the tickets. It's not so much that people don't respect the law."

Yesterday, Sen Burch also added that last year the traffic collisions were the lowest in 5 years with 2,195 total collisions down from 2,456 in 2008 and 3,006 in 2007 and 2,839 in 2006.

However, Sen. Burch added that fatal accidents remained "uncomfortably high" with 13 collisions last year compared to 17 in 2008.

Opposition Senator Michael Dunkley said that he was surprised to hear about a drop in the number of road collisions, but questioned why there was no funding for speed cameras.

He said: "We remain very concerned about the state of road driving and of the roads. I was pretty surprised the number of collisions was down over previous years. I just didn't think it was going to be that way.

"The driving on our roads is unacceptable. Last year the speed cameras were placed and not used and there's no allocation in there this year.

"The number of (traffic) tickets is about 38,000. We are pleased to see the outline and a new programme come in place and we hope it's successful."