Almost 100,000 drivers caught speeding in the North East - UK figures show speeding makes up 84% of all detected motoring offences

A total of 99,189 drivers in the North East were caught speeding in 2018/19, with some 2.39million caught speeding in England and Wales, the study commissioned by the RAC Foundation found.

This was a 4% increase on the previous 12 months and a 37% rise compared with 2011/12.

A total of 2.84 million motoring offences were recorded in 2018/19, meaning speeding accounted for 84%.

There were 67,857 drivers caught in the Northumbria Police area, 19,395 in the Durham Constabulary force area, and 11,937 in the Cleveland Police area, which was among the lowest nationally.

The vast majority (97%) of speeding incidents nationally 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% resulted in the offender being sent on a speed awareness course

- 34% attracted fixed penalty notices

- 12% were later cancelled

- 10% 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.

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 vehicle exceeding the speed limit was a contributory factor.

Here are the number of speeding offences detected by police forces in England and Wales in 2018/19:

1. West Yorkshire 181,867

2. Avon and Somerset 159,210

3. Metropolitan Police (including City of London) 157,494

4. Thames Valley 145,447

5. Greater Manchester 106,839

6. Norfolk and Suffolk 98,729

7. West Mercia 92,335

8. Essex 91,849

9. Surrey 89,079

10. Bedfordshire 76,573

11. Lancashire 74,286

12. Hampshire 73,036

13. Northumbria 67,857

14. West Midlands 57,154

15. South Yorkshire 55,461

16. Sussex 54,139

17. Humberside 53,679

18. Merseyside 53,112

19. Hertfordshire 52,794

20. Warwickshire 52,774

21. Cheshire 52,770

22. Northamptonshire 49,448

23. Staffordshire 48,583

24. Devon and Cornwall 47,272

25. Lincolnshire 45,712

26. North Yorkshire 41,934

27. Leicestershire 41,909

28. Cumbria 40,104

29. Wales outside North Wales 35,005

30. Cambridgeshire 34,672

31. Nottinghamshire 24,566

32. Gloucestershire 24,121

33. Dorset 22,716

34. Kent 20,366

35. North Wales 19,493

36. Durham 19,395

37. Derbyshire 12,256

38. Cleveland 11,937

39. 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.