Speeding is, sadly, one of the most common crimes in the UK. And it is a major cause of death on UK roads. So it is always interesting to review the DfT’s data on vehicles exceeding the speed limit, that it collects at 20 sites nationally. This week, that data was published. And the overall results? Not much has changed.

The data can be broken down by 4 different types of road (Motorway, National Speed Limit (Single Carriageway), 30mph, and 20mph) and different types of vehicles. The data has been collected since 2011. Note that, in all instances here where a 0 is reported, the data has simply not collected a statistically representative sample.

Looking back since 2011, what has been remarkable is the consistency at which law breaking is taking place. With the exception for 2018 and 2019, where for some reason Light Commercial Vehicles were more likely to break the 20mph speed limit, and there is slightly more variation between the types of vehicles on national speed limit single carriageway roads.

There is some slight variance across the different hours of the day, with instances of vehicles exceeding the speed limit dipping during daylight hours. Meanwhile, in the early hours of the day, if you wanted to catch speeders it is richer pickings. There is a notably huge variance across 30mph roads, dipping from 80% of cars exceeding the speed limit to under 50% during the day.

But as always, the devil is in the detail. The Department for Transport did daily measurements of vehicles exceeding the speed limit. For motorways, the data is remarkably consistent across the measured modes in terms of variance, although this less the case for cars which typically keep to the 60% to 40% range.

In contrast, there is significantly more variance between the modes on single carriageway roads in national speed limit areas. Motorcycles and short buses are far more likely to comply with the speed limit, and cars and long buses are far more likely to exceed the speed limit.

For 30mph areas, long buses are far more likely to comply with the speed limit compared to other vehicle types. But for all remaining vehicles, there is very little variance between the different vehicle types. Although motorcycles are more likely to exceed the speed limit.

As for 20mph zones, I will keep it brief. Breaking the speed limit is endemic. Though slightly less so for short buses.

And that is the depressing result from this data. Speeding is endemic, an acceptable crime for far too many people. And this crime is killing people. I long for the day when speeding becomes about as socially acceptable as drink driving.