NEARLY 5,000 motorists have been caught speeding in North Yorkshire by the police mobile safety camera in the first three months of its operation.

The six-month pilot of the county’s first speed camera van was launched on July 1 with the aim of enforcing speed limits on hazardous roads and encouraging motorcyclists to ride more carefully.

Since the launch of the van, 4,742 speeding motorists have been caught, and 70 have been summonsed to court. One motorist appeared before a court after driving at 101mph on a stretch of the A64 near Malton. The 20-year-old man, from Whitby, was caught speeding in his Toyota Celica on July 5.

He appeared at Scarborough Magistrates’ Court on October 3 and was fined £600, disqualified for seven days and ordered to pay costs of £45.

Of the 4,742, a total of 3,897 have been offered speed awareness courses. A further 775 motorists have been issued with conditional fixed penalty notices. Police say since the launch, “high-speed” offences – when drivers have driven at more than 26mph over the speed limit or 20mph over the limit in a 30mph zone – have fallen from two per cent of all violations to 0.7 per cent.

Offences in the “mid-speed” offence range – which fall between the high threshold and the speed awareness course threshold – have fallen from 21.1 per cent of all violations to 10.6 per cent.

Inspector Dave Brown, head of strategic roads policing, said: “In the short time we’ve been using the van it’s provided a valuable extra tool in our roads policing capability and our continuing drive to reduce casualties on our roads.

“The foolproof way not to get caught by the camera is simple – don’t speed.”

In the past three years, speeding accounted for 36 deaths in York and North Yorkshire – 24 per cent of all road deaths. During the same period 1,128 were injured – including 299 people seriously injured – in collisions where speed was a factor.

• Since North Yorkshire’s first speed camera van took to the roads, the dedicated team said they had clocked 661 speeding motorists on the A64 at Tadcaster alone in the past three months.

It has been revealed as the worst stretch of road for speeding in the county, followed by the A1039 Filey Road, at Flixton, which notched up 638 offences.

The A64 Malton by-pass clocked up 539 speeding offences, with one 57-year-old Scarborough man captured travelling at 88mph in a Ford Transit van on July 22. He appeared before Scarborough Magistrates’ Court on October 19 and was fined £265, ordered to pay £45 costs and had six points put on his licence.

The Seamer by-pass, at Scarborough, saw 192 motorists stopped for excessive speed, followed by 181 at the A61 at Harrogate, 135 at the A59 at Starbeck and 189 at Leeming Lane, in Catterick.