The number of speeding offences detected by police forces in England and Wales has risen by nearly 40% over the last eight years.
Analysis of Home Office data, carried out by Dr Adam Snow of Liverpool John Moores University and Doreen Lam of the RAC Foundation, shows 2,386,780 speeding offences were detected in England and Wales in 2018-19.
The figure represents a 4% rise from 2017-18, when the number stood at 2,292,534 – and is 37% higher than the 1,740,217 speeding offences detected in 2011-12.
Of the 2018-19 offences, 44% resulted in the offender being sent on a speed awareness course, with 34% attracting fixed penalty notices (FPNs).
One in 10 resulted in court action (10%), while 12% were later cancelled.
Speeding accounted for 84% of the total number of motoring offences detected in 2018-19.
Steve Gooding of the RAC Foundation said: “The simple rule for drivers who don’t want to risk ending up with a speeding ticket is not to break the limit in the first place.
“Where limits are properly signposted and clearly feel right for the road in question then motorists have no excuse for going faster.
“But that means highway authorities also have a responsibility to make sure the limits they set are appropriate and to avoid instances where the limit repeatedly ‘bounces’ up and down along a single stretch.”
‘Large variations between constabularies’
In terms of location, West Yorkshire topped the list with 181,867 people caught speeding in 2018-19.
Second was Avon and Somerset (159,210) followed by the Metropolitan Police (including City of London) with 157,494.
At the other end of the scale Wiltshire Constabulary caught only 807 people speeding, Cleveland caught 11,937 and Derbyshire 12,256.
The RAC Foundation says the variations across police forces will in part be down to geographical area, road type and traffic volume – as well as local policing priorities. In Wiltshire, for example, all speed cameras were turned off in 2010.
Across the 43 constabularies of England and Wales, the vast majority (97%) of offences were detected by speed cameras.
I asked Kent Police why their figures are so low. “That’s because we don’t report most of them to the Home Office. We have our own recording system”. I wonder how many other police forces that applies to?
Adrian Berendt, Tunbridge Wells
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Has the number of speed detection methods increased at the same rate over this period i.e 40% over eight years? i.e. are we catching more speeders simply because of increased resources to do so? If not, then the implication is that the standard of driving is getting worse.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
--22
I would like to congratulate the police forces involved with the NDORS scheme for their windfall of approximately £36.7 million, and NDORS themselves for a windfall of approximately £5 million.
Anyhow, giving that document a further read, was there really no speed camera activations within Wiltshire last year? Not a single LIDAR device in use by the police?
Or is the definition of “speed camera” rather flexible
David Weston, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
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