More than one in six drivers caught speeding in England had their fines cancelled last year, as figures show thousands of fines are dodged in the North East.
Analysis of Government data by the RAC Foundation revealed that 404,335 (17%) of 2.4 million speeding cases in the 12 months to the end of March last year were dismissed.
A rise in law-breaking drivers using cloned number plates to fool police may be part of the reason for the rise, the foundation said.
In the North East, 72,738 fixed penalty notices were issued for speeding offences last year, of which one in nine, 7,948 offences, were cancelled.
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The national figures rose by 13% during the pandemic, compared to the previous year - although in parts of the North East the number of cancelled fines actually fell.
The highest proportions of cancelled speeding cases during 2020-21 were in Greater Manchester and Warwickshire, both at 39%.
In the Northumbria Police area, 12% of speeding fines were cancelled, a total of 6,876, up from 8% in 2019-2020.
Police in County Durham reduced the number of cancelled fines, from 6% (934) in 2019-2020 to 3.5% (just 290) the following year.
Cleveland police recorded the biggest rise in the proportion of cancelled offences (12%, up from 5% the previous year), however, there was a significant drop in the overall number of offences detected, from 14,682 in 2019-20 to just 6,628 the following year.
Fines can be cancelled for a number of reasons, including:
- Faulty speed cameras.
- Cloned vehicles carrying false number plates.
- Emergency vehicles lawfully breaking speed limits.
- Delays in issuing notices of intended prosecution.
- Lack of resources to bring cases to court.
Most people who were fined for speeding were caught by speed cameras - 70,616 cases in 2020-21, compared to 2,122 fines issued by police officers. And you’re much more likely to see your fine cancelled if detected by a camera - 11% were cancelled versus 9% of fines issued by police across the North East.
Of the drivers whose offences were upheld, 33% paid a fine, 47% were sent for driver retraining, while 9% faced court action.
According to the foundation, some of these problems could have been made worse by the impact of the pandemic.
The total number of speeding offences detected was down by only 6% on the previous year, despite traffic volumes falling by more than a quarter due to coronavirus lockdowns.
RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said: “It is correct that drivers caught speeding should face the consequences, but it is also important that the systems of detection and prosecution are robust.
“The hundreds of thousands of cancelled offences each year indicate they are not. At the very least it is an administrative burden the police could do without.
“We urge the Home Office to start collecting data from police forces about these cancelled offences so we can understand where the problem lies.”
Adam Snow, a lecturer at the law school of Liverpool John Moores University, who worked on the report, said: “Police forces and local authorities are seeing number plate cloning as a growing problem.
“With the increasing reliance on camera enforcement for clean air zones and moving traffic violations, there is some evidence to suggest more motorists are seeing this as an acceptable response even though it is fraud.”
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