Revealed: More than 100,000 tickets handed out to speeding drivers
Speeding accounted for nearly nine in 10 driving offences in the West Midlands and Staffordshire last year, figures reveal.
The transport research charity RAC Foundation says the simple rule for drivers who want to avoid a speeding ticket is to stay within the limit.
Analysis of Home Office data by the group shows that motorists were caught driving too fast 57,154 times by West Midlands Police in 2018-19.
It means 85 per cent of the 67,457 motoring offences recorded over the period were for speeding.
Over in Staffordshire motorists were caught driving too fast 48,583 times by Staffordshire Police in 2018-19 – which means 89 per cent of the 54,771 motoring offences recorded over the period were for speeding.
Across England and Wales as a whole, 84 per cent of the 2.8 million motoring infractions logged across the two nations were for speeding.
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.
Responsibility
“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.”
The number of speeding offences detected in West Midlands in 2018-19 was 63 per cent higher than during the previous year, while in Staffordshire it was only 17 per cent higher.
Across England and Wales, the 2.4 million offences recorded in 2018-19 represented a four per cent annual increase.
In West Midlands, 40 per cent of speeding offences in 2018-19 were dealt with by sending the driver on a speed awareness course, while in Staffordshire it was 50 per cent.
The next most common outcome for both regions was a fine.
The analysis, which was carried out with Liverpool John Moores University, found that the number of drivers caught speeding varied widely across England and Wales.
The police force that detected the most speeding offences in 2018-19 was West Yorkshire with 182,000.
But in Wiltshire, where all speed cameras were turned off in 2010, the police caught fewer than 1,000 people speeding.
