Greater London named speed trap capital of UK!

LONDON, England - August 6, 2010 - New research has found that motorists face a “postcode lottery” when it comes to the policing of speed limits on UK roads.

RoadPilot - one of Europe’s leading suppliers of GPS speed camera data - found that speeding drivers are up to 100 times more likely to be caught in Greater London than in some other areas of the country.

The study identified that Greater London now has 16% of the UK’s roadside speed cameras - more than Scotland, Wales, and Ireland combined. The West Midlands, which includes the actively policed city of Birmingham, has the second most strictly enforced speed limits (with 7.4% of all cameras), followed by West Yorkshire (6.7%), Lancashire (5.7%), and Staffordshire (5.0%).

Although the decision taken by some councils to cut funding for speed cameras has hit the headlines in recent weeks, research by RoadPilot indicates that these changes will affect just 3% of cameras in the UK. “It is perhaps to be expected that London, as the UK’s largest city, would have the highest concentration of speed cameras, but the extent of the differences in number of speed cameras around the UK is very surprising,” commented James Flynn OBE, CEO of RoadPilot.

“The recent change to the way that speed cameras are funded has certainly affected some areas of the UK, but it is important to keep in mind the bigger picture. The UK’s speed limits remain the most heavily policed in the world, and the recent cuts will only affect a tiny proportion of the country’s more than 5,500 speed cameras. Given that more than 56% of all of the nation’s speed cameras monitor 30mph limits - compared with only 3.6% sited on roads with 70mph limits - drivers don’t necessarily have to be ‘driving fast’ to risk collecting a fine and license endorsement points. With so many distractions on our roads, drivers need all the help they can get to keep fully aware of local limits,” Flynn concluded.