More than half of motorists admit that they break the legal speed limit on Britain's roads most days, a new study shows.
The research by the RAC will today reveal that the number of drivers who say they speed regularly has risen by 10% over the past year to 55%, despite a sharp increase in the deployment of speed cameras.
The growth in casual speeding comes despite the Department for Transport's efforts to discourage it, with £14m spent last year on hard-hitting advertisements warning of the dangers of speeding, drink-driving and driver fatigue.
Top of the speeding league are drivers in the north, where 60% say they exceed the limit most days. Least likely to break the law are motorists in Scotland, at 51%, or in London, where 52% admit to speeding.
The RAC's spokesman, Philip Hale, said motoring organisations were increasingly worried about a phenomenon known as "driving under the radar" where motorists become wise to enforcement methods and use cunning to avoid detection.
"People are very wise to how speed cameras work - they slow down when they see a camera, then speed up when they get past it," he said. "Some drivers adopt a gladiatorial attitude towards beating Big Brother and beating the system."
The RAC wants more traffic police to complement the use of speed cameras. Forces have been criticised for cutting back on staff hours in favour of using technology for "remote" road policing.
Some 3,500 people died on the roads in 2003, an increase of 2%. But the government points out that the number of injuries has been falling steeply - total casualties amounted to 291,000, a drop of 10% on 2000.
Brake, the road safety charity, said today's findings could be a result of a greater awareness of speed limits which made more people own up to breaking the law.
A spokeswoman, Caroline Chisholm, said: "Previously, people were speeding but they didn't even consider it to be speeding. Now they've at least got a higher awareness that they're doing something very dangerous and they're breaking the law.
"The culture is slowly shifting - if you get caught by a camera, you don't get patted on the head with sympathy by people around you any more."
From:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1407239,00.html
My emphasis.
