POLICE have described the number of offenders caught during their latest road safety campaign as 'alarming' as more than 5,000 speeding motorists were caught in just one month.

North Yorkshire's Road Policing Group launched the 'Fatal 5' campaign in November last year with patrols focussing on each of the 'fatal 5' – the five main causes of fatal crashes.

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These are careless driving, drink and drug driving, not wearing a seatbelt, excessive speed and distracted driving, including mobile phone use.

At the beginning of the campaign in November, the focus on careless driving resulted in 286 offences being recorded.

December’s drink and drug driving campaign saw a significant increase in drink drive arrests on previous years, with 137 arrests made between December 1, 2021 and January 1. 

In January the force focused on people not wearing seatbelts and recorded almost 120 offences that month.

Speeding motorists were the target in February and throughout the month there were almost 5,200 speeding violations.

Of those offences recorded both by officers patrolling the roads and the camera van, more than 4,000 qualified for a Speed Awareness Course, more than 500 resulted in a fine, and nearly 50 ended up in court.

The speed camera van visited more than 300 sites in February, totalling more than 1,000 hours of deployment.

During the safety campaign, the new legislation around mobile phones and driving came into effect in March.

Officers conducted an operation which included use of an HGV cab along a stretch of the A1 in the county.

This saw 69 vehicles stopped and 64 offences being recorded.

The highest number of offences were for not wearing seatbelts, using a mobile phone and not being in proper control of a vehicle.

Roads Policing Inspector Mick Roffe said: “Road Safety is one of North Yorkshire Police’s strategic priorities and we are absolutely committed to reducing the number of serious injury and fatal collisions across our road network.

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“The fatal 5 campaign is just part of our targeted activity which aims to make sure all road users are as safe as possible.

“We engage with different road users to educate them about the dangers on the roads and about the critical importance of vehicle safety and driving laws.

“The enforcement activity is to take action against those users who disregard the responsibility of driving safely.

“The figures from the campaign are alarming because it shows just how many people are willing to take serious risks on our roads and break the laws that are there to protect them.

“As police officers, we see too much devastation on our roads first-hand. That’s why we do what we do – we want to prevent road users losing their lives or costing the life of someone else.”

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