Speed camera data reveals postcode lottery
Local police priorities are behind a regional disparity in the number of tickets issued, a study suggests
DRIVERS are 225 times more likely to be caught speeding in some parts of the country than others, figures reveal.
The police force that detected the most speeding offences in 2018-19 was West Yorkshire with 181,867, according to a study commissioned by the RAC Foundation.
Meanwhile, Wiltshire – which has had no speed cameras since 2010 – pursued just 807 offences last year.
The analysis of Home Office data by Adam Snow of Liverpool John Moores University and Doreen Lam of the RAC
Foundation found that there was a huge regional disparity in the number of drivers issued with speeding tickets.
Researchers suggested variations between forces were partly due to geographical area, road type, traffic volume and local policing priorities.
Neil Greig, director of policy at IAM Roadsmart, formerly the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said the postcode lottery was concerning.
“It leads to these urban myths that certain areas might be more likely to prosecute you for speeding – and in some drivers’ minds it leads you to think you can get away with it in some places,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“The deterrent should be consistent – if you speed you should be at risk of being caught wherever you are.”
He said the regional difference was “directly related” to the priority given to traffic offences by local police forces, adding that there had been a “growing disparity” in the past 10-20 years.
“The basic issue is that traffic offences is not a Home Office priority, so it is left to local decisions,” he said. “Their priorities are human trafficking, terrorism, knife crime and so on, so these are the sorts of things that forces get inspected on and judged on.
“These are big issues but if you look at the number of people killed on our roads it’s more than the number who are stabbed. Road collisions are one of the biggest killers of young people. You are far more likely to be killed in a road accident than in a terrorist attack.”
Speeding accounted for more than four out of five detected motoring offences in 2018-19, the analysis found.
Some 2.39 million drivers were caught speeding in England and Wales last year, which is a four per cent increase on the previous 12 months and a 37 per cent rise compared with 2011-12.
A total of 2.84million motoring offences were recorded in 2018-19, meaning speeding accounted for 84 per cent. The vast majority (97 per cent) of speeding incidents involved drivers being caught by camera.
Steve Gooding, the RAC Foundation director, said: “Where limits are properly signposted and clearly feel right for the road in question, 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.”
Department for Transport figures show 186 people were killed and 1,505 seriously injured in crashes on Britain’s roads in 2018 in which a speeding vehicle was a contributory factor.