Safe Speed Forums

Motoring offences reach record high
The total number of motoring offences dealt with by police reached a record high of 13.5 million, up 3% on the previous year. The latest Home Office figures show that there were 466 offences for every thousand vehicles in England and Wales during 2004.

More than three million offences were fixed penalty notices issued by the police, although the figure was down 2% on 2003. Parking attendants handed out 7.7 million penalty charge notices, up 7%. Speed cameras provided evidence for two million offences and 91% of speeding offences. Breath tests were up 8% to 578,000, but the number of positive or refused tests fell 3% to 103,000.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign, was unimpressed by the figures. He said: ‘These statistics do not suggest that we are doing anything to improve road safety. They show that we’re hitting easy and ineffective targets, rather than taking the trouble to identify those causing a danger to others. As drivers are more focused on legal driving they are less focused on safe driving.’