GETTING AWAY WITH SPEEDING
Huge proportions of car drivers are breaking the speed limit on our roads
NEARLY half of all car drivers break the 70mph speed limit on motorways, new figures have revealed.
Data from the Department for Transport shows that 48% of cars exceeded the speed limit last year, with 12% of speeders doing so by more than 10mph.
And motorways weren’t the only type of road to see drivers speeding.
More than a fifth of car drivers exceeded the speed limit on 30mph roads in 2017 (21%) - of those, 20% do so by 5mph or more.
And a massive 86% of drivers were found to exceed the speed limit on 20mph roads, with half of them doing so by at least 5mph.
According to the RAC’s 2017 Report on Motoring, the most common reason drivers gave for breaking the speed limit is that they were driving according to the speed of other road users.
Another common reason is that they thought the speed limit was inappropriate for the road on which they were travelling.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) say that inappropriate speed is a factor in just under a quarter (24%) of all collisions that result in death.
This includes driving at excessive speed but aldo driving within the speed limit when it is too fast for the conditions at the time - such as in poor weather or visibility. A pedestrian hit by a car travelling at between 30-40mph is up to five-and-a-half times more likely to be killed than if hit by a car travelling below 30mph. ROSPA goes on to estimate that 84% of speeding vehicles are driven by men compared to just 16% of women.
The biggest culprits for speeding are younger drivers aged 1620, accounting for 22% of all drivers who use excess speed.
Figures from the
Home Office and Ministry of Justice show that 2,153 speed limit offences were recorded in 2016 - the greatest number since at least 2011.
And in 2017 some 1,230 speed awareness courses were attended, according to the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme. An RAC road safety spokesperson said: “With traffic levels rising, and people’s dependency on the car also increasing, a shift in focus is needed at both national and local levels to begin to tackle the problem.
“It is every driver’s responsibility to ensure they are driving safely by not breaking speed limits and reducing distractions in their vehicles so their attention remains firmly on the road.”