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.