Meet the ‘Yellow Box Guru’ waging conflict on money-grabbing councils to spare motorists from unfair fines – and what YOU ought to do if you happen to get a penalty

No one likes opening the dreaded brown envelope in the post with a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) inside. 

It can be even worse when the fine is for something trivial, such as stopping for just a few seconds in a yellow box junction.  

Motorists are then faced with a choice: pay up or spend potentially hours fighting their local authority over whether the fine is legal. 

But one man has made it his mission to help people fight back against money-grabbing councils issuing unfair fines for stopping in a yellow box. 

After getting home from his full-time job as a traffic engineer, Sam Wright gets to work on his ‘hobby’ – advising people on how to appeal their yellow box PCNs and posting his victories online to a growing audience. 

As the ‘Yellow Box Guru’, as he is known online, receives around ten messages a day from motorists who have received a PCN. He manages to overturn 80 per cent of these, if they decide to appeal the decision to an adjudicator.  

‘The catalyst for me was that I got a ticket not far from where I live where I knew I was not guilty. I was able to get off it because I know the law, but there are so many people that don’t,’ Mr Wright told the Daily Mail. 

‘So I really wanted to help other people who get these big scary letters through the post and have to pay up lots of money.’ 

The 49-year-old spent years at Transport for London (TfL), where he was responsible for the design and approval of yellow boxes. There he learned the ins and outs of the law surrounding yellow boxes. 

He set up a website a few years ago but joined TikTok and Instagram last year where his fame kicked off. He has amassed a following of 140,000 followers over both platforms.    

Yellow boxes are road markings with crisscross yellow lines across them. Under the Highway Code you should not enter the box unless your exit is clear – meaning if you stop in it you may be liable for a fine. The exception is when you are turning right. 

Mr Wright said that he had received multiple messages about the ‘overzealous nature’ of the PCNs from Waltham Forest Council.

He said: ‘I’ve done a video where a motorcyclist got fined because his front wheel was just barely touching the box. I get so many in [Waltham Forest] in really overzealous situations that are nowhere near causing any obstruction to traffic.

‘America doesn’t have these boxes, mainland Europe doesn’t either. We’re always told that we’re all going to die if we don’t have them but most other countries in the world survive without them.

‘The country I know that does use the same system is Singapore. But considering it is one of the strictest countries in the world, with fines for chewing gum and the death penalty, they are far less draconian than us when it comes to yellow boxes. 

‘I wish that in the UK we had that same attitude towards other crimes such as knife crime. It needs to be the other way around. A bit more draconian on knife crime and a lot softer on yellow boxes.’

He launched a petition last year calling on the government to force councils to reduce the size of boxes down to their necessary size and to create a grace period for drivers stuck in a box.  

Mr Wright said: ‘I’ve got a full-time job but I spend a lot of my time in the evenings reading through adjudication decisions. 

‘I’ve helped hundreds of people and along with my past experience it’s just an enormous amount of knowledge on the topic.

‘Unfortunately a lot of people have good grounds for appeal but decide to pay up. That’s because the fine doubles if it goes to an adjudicator, so a lot of people just can’t afford to take the risk.’

In London, a yellow box PCN is £80 – this rises to £160 if an appeal to the adjudicator fails.

Yellow box fines can be appealed in the way most traffic fines can be fought, by checking if you actually broke any rules. But yellow boxes differ from other fines, such as wrongly going down a one-way road, because some boxes have been wrongly drawn, according to Mr Wright. 

He said that some yellow boxes extend far beyond a junction, serving no real purpose in traffic management, meaning the fine should not be valid.  

A 2024 study from RAC, incidentally conducted by Sam Wright too, showed that almost 98 per cent of the top yellow boxes generating PCNs were larger than necessary. 

These yellow boxes would often overhang past a junction for no apparent reason. 

Mr Wright said: ‘The only reason yellow boxes are there is to keep traffic moving. If it’s not, then it’s just there to grab people’s money. They bring the whole system into disrepute. 

‘I work in the industry and people should be able to trust their local authority to have their best interests at heart.’ 

Previously only councils in London and Cardiff were allowed to enforce yellow boxes with PCNs but in 2022 this was expanded to all councils. 

In 2024 just 36 yellow boxes across England generated £1million in revenue for councils.

The UK’s ‘most lucrative’ double-box junction generates more than £1,800 a day from trapped drivers. 

From January to August last year the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in London raked in a total of £451,405 in PCNs from one junction. 

In an initial meeting the council refused to make any changes to the two boxes – despite so many motorists being caught out. Councillor Lesley Heap said this was because the boxes had ‘monetary and budgetary implications’. 

But last week Kingston Council said they would remove part of the yellow box after legal review and would review all other yellow boxes in the borough over the next six months. 

One of the independent councillor’s who demanded the review, James Giles, said: ‘It is blatant to anybody looking at the statistics that this is a cash cow.

‘These things aren’t meant to be about money making but about keeping traffic moving and safety. So I’m delighted that the administration have finally agreed with our view that this needs to be put right.’ 

A spokesman for Kingston Council said: ‘Yellow boxes are used across the country to improve traffic flow and provide safe environments for all road users. The council uses its enforcement powers to ensure compliance. 

‘We do not and by law are not permitted to use enforcement with the objective of raising revenue. 

‘The neighbourhood committee made the decision on 22 January to undertake a full review of both junctions and seek appropriate advice with regard to shortening the junction box.’