A LEADING road safety charity has urged the police to “crack down heavily” on speeding drivers.

Brake’s call comes after shocking figures, released through a Freedom of Information request to West Yorkshire Police, revealed the number of speeding fines issued by the force has rocketed since 2016.

The charity says this indicates a “worryingly common disregard for the law and road safety”.

The number of fines issued in January this year totalled 6,048 – more than treble the 1,927 issued in January 2016, and up from 3,534 in January last year.

While the figures for February, March and April dipped to the 4,000s, May saw 5,126 fines issued.

The FOI has also revealed the eye-watering speeds recorded. In 2017, a car was clocked at 160mph on the westbound stretch of the M62 between junctions 26 and 27. And this year, a driver on the same stretch of road was caught driving at 156mph. A speed of 113mph was also recorded on the A647 Stanningley Bypass in 2016. All figures released through the FOI included both fixed and mobile speed cameras.

A spokesperson for Brake said: “The increasing number of speeding fines in West Yorkshire is cause for concern.

“It is unclear whether or not this is due to increased camera activity but regardless, it indicates a worryingly common disregard for the law and road safety. Speeding is dangerous, selfish and endangers road users; a car is a lethal weapon and any error at speed can result in catastrophic consequences.

“We urge the police to crack down heavily on those who speed, letting drivers know that if the break the law, they will get punished.”

In response to the FOI, Paul Jeffrey, Police Partnership Manager for Casualty Reduction, said: “Road safety remains one of our priorities for the force and we have a team of dedicated Safer Roads officers who patrol our roads network.

“West Yorkshire Police, the five Local Authorities, Highways England and other stakeholders also work together within the West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership to improve road safety across our force area.

“Wherever possible we aim to encourage road users to understand how they can reduce risk on the roads of West Yorkshire using a range of education and training activities, including driver offender retraining courses to improve driver behaviour, while officers retain the option to pursue prosecution in instances of more significant or repeated offending.

“The partnership aims to make our roads safer and crack down on dangerous driving, including the ‘fatal four’ offences – of which speeding is one. We are committed to reducing speeding on West Yorkshire’s roads and one of way of doing this is through the use of speed enforcement cameras at locations identified as having a high risk of speed-related collisions.”