Drivers in stark warning

The commercial warns that if you kill someone while speeding you will be tormented by it forever.

In the new advert, a driver is haunted by images of the child he has killed – seeing his body in the bathroom mirror, through the window of a bus and when in the park with his son.

Chris Anderson, chairman of North Yorkshire’s 95 Alive road-safety steering group, said: “Motorists need to understand that the prevailing speed limit is the maximum speed at which they should be travelling. Even a 1mph reduction in average speed results in a five per cent reduction in road casualties.

“With 2008 witnessing the lowest recorded road casualty numbers for many years here in North Yorkshire, we are currently investigating the extent to which reduced speeds may have had an impact on our road-casualty figures, alongside increasingly well-coordinated and more effective partnership working.”

The county council said it did not have the figures to show how many people were killed on the region's roads last year, but it is believed to have been less than in previous years due to the work of the 95 Alive Campaign and the efforts of the police.

Inspector Dave Brown, head of roads policing in North Yorkshire and co-ordinator of the Operation Anvil enforcement campaign, said: “We will continue to detect and prosecute motorists who flagrantly choose to ignore the law in North Yorkshire and the City of York. Speeding is not acceptable, every driver and rider knows this and if they make a conscious decision to disobey the rules of the road then they can expect to get caught and processed through the Criminal Justice system. “Reduced speed equals reduced casualties. It really is a simple equation.”

The 95 Alive Road Safety Partnership is tackling speed in a number of ways. Operation Anvil is a police led enforcement campaign aiming to create a safer environment for all road users.