North Yorkshire Police has urged motorists to slow down on the county’s roads after revealing it has caught drivers doing more than 80mph in residential areas.
The figures, broken down by district, show the highest speed recorded in any 30mph zone in the region during the last 18-months was in Harrogate, where a driver was clocked at 82mph.
Another driver was caught doing 74mph on a 30mph road near a primary school in Kettlewell – while another was recorded doing 103mph in a 40mph zone near Selby.
All of the the incidents were recorded by the force’s mobile safety cameras.
North Yorkshire Police has revealed the information as part of its year-round campaign to make the county’s roads safer.
Called ‘If you saw what I saw…’, the campaign uses the first-hand experiences of police officers who attend fatal crashes, to urge motorists to drive more carefully.
Andy Tooke, criminal justice operations manager for North Yorkshire Police, said: “People sometimes question why we use mobile safety cameras to enforce speed limits.
“Imagine taking your children to a playground or walking them to school, or helping an elderly relative across the road, when a driver approaches at more than 80mph.
“The consequences of hitting a pedestrian or cyclist at those speeds would be absolutely horrendous. The chance of a child surviving if they were hit at 82mph is virtually nil.”
North Yorkshire Police has moved to reassure residents that 30mph areas are frequently visited by safety camera teams, and that many villages and suburbs are among the force’s priority enforcement sites.
Mr Tooke added: “It’d be great if we didn’t need to use mobile safety cameras to enforce speeding. But unfortunately some people don’t consider the consequences of their actions.
“By revealing some of the speeds we’ve recorded recently, we hope drivers will think about why speed limits exist and why it’s not ok to break them.
“If you saw what we see, you’d realise how truly horrific fatal collisions are and the devastation they cause to the families left behind.”
Courtesy of North Yorkshire Police