Birds responds as doughnut shortage dubbed ‘emergency’
SPEED cameras caught a person travelling at almost 100mph on a Derby road last year.
The driver was caught at 96mph down Osmaston Park Road in Allenton, which is a 40mph limit. It was also the joint fourth fastest anyone was caught travelling in Derbyshire in 2018, according to police statistics.
The fastest speeder was snapped doing 106mph on the M1 southbound between junctions 24a and 25.
Another was caught at 103mph between junctions 28 and 30 northbound, and two more at 99mph and 96mph on the same stretch.
Police also revealed the number of people caught speeding at 100mph or over during 2018 and 2017. There were only two caught in 2018 by police, compared to four caught in 2017.
Road safety charity Brake is calling on the Government to invest in national roads policing as a matter of urgency to give forces the resources necessary to increase enforcement.
Joshua Harris, director of campaigns at the charity, said: “There is absolutely no justification for any driver to be travelling at such excessive speeds – more than twice the national speed limit in some cases – putting themselves and others in grave danger.
“The number of drivers caught speeding at over 100mph highlights some deeply concerning issues with speeding across the country and makes clear the need for action. DERBY’S Birds Bakery has been making hundreds of extra doughnuts in the wake of a shortage.
The company announced that no cream, caramel or jam doughnuts were available in its stores yesterday because of a “mechanical fault” on its production line.
Birds fan Simon Bentley described the news as a “state of emergency” on Facebook. To make up for the day’s loss of doughnuts, the bakery says it was making an extra 650 caramel doughnuts overnight on top of the usual amount.
Mike Holling, director of sales at Birds, said the issue was at the company’s Ascot Drive factory.
He said: “There has been a problem with the gearbox to the
“Anyone caught travelling at such speed should always face a ban – we have to make sure these dangerous, selfish drivers are taken off our roads.
“The Government must invest in national roads policing as a priority to provide the police with the resources they need to get out on the roads and act as a true deterrent to dangerous driving. The law must also be used to its fullest extent in penalising such dangerous behaviour, making it clear that speeding will not be tolerated.”
The number of drivers caught speeding in 2018 was up from 2017, when the police clocked 86 drivers travelling at more than 100mph.
Last year, 9,596 motorists were caught speeding at more than 100mph on roads across the UK. That was up by 52% compared to 6,311 in 2017.
Brake is calling for an immediate driving ban for those caught travelling at over 100mph and greater resources provided to the police to help improve speeding enforcement.
The road safety charity obtained figures from 40 of the 45 police forces through Freedom of Information requests. The top five speeds recorded nationwide were 162mph on the M1 in South Yorkshire and M4 in Avon and Somerset, 160mph on the M5 in West Mercia, and 157mph on the M62 in West Yorkshire and M25 in Kent.
Drivers caught speeding at over 100mph can be given a driving ban or six penalty points on their licence. The maximum fine for serious speeding offences is £1,000, rising to £2,500 if caught on a motorway. conveyor belt we use here at Ascot Drive. We needed to get a part to fix the machine and Monday morning was the earliest we could get an engineer in to do it.
“The good news is we will back to normal and we will be making 650 extra caramel doughnuts overnight so people can cope with the withdrawal symptoms. We had comments on Facebook saying it’s an emergency, which has been amusing. I can tell your readers that this has nothing to do with Brexit.”
Mr Holling said the weekend’s events were a very rare occurrence and that faults such as this happened “once every five years”.
He said the firm’s machine makes almost 40,000 doughnuts a week.