Bikers play safe in speeding Britain

Britain has become a nation of speed merchants, according to a new Government report. It shows that most drivers break speed limits most of the time. But motorcyclists are surprisingly law-abiding.

More than half of all the 70 million cars monitored on Britain's motorways by the Department of Transport last year, as part of its National Traffic Census, were found to be travelling at more than 70mph, says the report, Vehicle Speeds in Great Britain 1995, which was published last week.

Nearly one-fifth of the drivers were travelling at more than 80mph. Nearly three-quarters of the cars monitored in urban areas were breaking the 30mph speed limit.

Britain's lorry drivers were just as bad as those travelling by car. Some 70 per cent of heavy goods vehicles were revealed to be exceeding their 40mph speed limit on single carriageways, and one-quarter of them were speeding along in excess of 10mph above it.

Motorcyclists were the most law-abiding, with only just over one-third of them breaking speed limits.

The report concludes: "Speeding is widespread on both urban and non-urban roads."