SPEEDING accounts for more than four out of five detected motoring offences, analysis has revealed.
Some 2.39 million drivers were caught speeding in England and Wales in 2018/19, the study commissioned by the RAC Foundation found.
This was a four per cent increase on the previous 12 months, and a 37 per cent rise compared with 2011/12.
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A total of 2.84 million 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.
RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding 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, 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."
Speeding offences were dealt with in the following ways in 2018/19:
44 per cent resulted in the offender being sent on a speed awareness course.
34 per cent attracted fixed penalty notices,
12 per cent were later cancelled.
10 per cent resulted in court action.
The analysis of Home Office data by Adam Snow of Liverpool John Moores University and Doreen Lam of the RAC Foundation found that the number of drivers caught speeding was 225 times higher in some parts of England and Wales than others.
The police force that detected the most speeding offences in 2018/19 was West Yorkshire with 182,000.
This was followed by Avon and Somerset (159,000) and Metropolitan Police and City of London combined (157,000).
At the other end of the scale, Wiltshire Police caught fewer than 1,000 people speeding, with Cleveland and Derbyshire each identifying 12,000.
Researchers suggested variations across forces are partly due to geographical area, road type, traffic volume and local policing priorities.
In Wiltshire, all speed cameras were turned off in 2010.
The number of speeding offences detected by police forces in England and Wales in 2018/19:
West Yorkshire 181,867
Avon and Somerset 159,210
Metropolitan Police (including City of London) 157,494
Thames Valley 145,447
Greater Manchester 106,839
Norfolk and Suffolk 98,729
West Mercia 92,335
Essex 91,849
Surrey 89,079
Bedfordshire 76,573
Lancashire 74,286
Hampshire 73,036
Northumbria 67,857
West Midlands 57,154
South Yorkshire 55,461
Sussex 54,139
Humberside 53,679
Merseyside 53,112
Hertfordshire 52,794
Warwickshire 52,774
Cheshire 52,770
Northamptonshire 49,448
Staffordshire 48,583
Devon and Cornwall 47,272
Lincolnshire 45,712
North Yorkshire 41,934
Leicestershire 41,909
Cumbria 40,104
Wales outside North Wales 35,005
Cambridgeshire 34,672
Nottinghamshire 24,566
Gloucestershire 24,121
Dorset 22,716
Kent 20,366
North Wales 19,493
Durham 19,395
Derbyshire 12,256
Cleveland 11,937
Wiltshire 807
The research used combined figures for the following forces: Metropolitan Police and City of London; Suffolk and Norfolk; forces in Wales outside North Wales.
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