IN just one week more than 28,000 drivers broke the speed limit in Aldeburgh, it has emerged.

Richard Smith

IN just one week more than 28,000 drivers broke the speed limit in Aldeburgh, it has emerged.

Nearly 10,000 of those drivers were driving so fast that they would have been fined if police officers had been prosecuting offenders.

Speed monitoring devices, which flash a smiley face if you're within the speed limit and a sad face if you're over the limit, caught one in two cars speeding on the two main roads out of the town.

Nikki Carrier, an officer with the Leiston and Aldeburgh Safer Neighbourhood Team, told Aldeburgh town council: “This gives you an idea of what we are up against and we were getting one or two whose speeds were ridiculously high.”

Now motorists are being warned that police officers and community support officers will be carrying out speed checks at key times using data gathered from the campaign.

Specialist units including a van with a speed camera will be drafted in to catch offenders and there will be high visibility patrols.

Speeding on the Leiston Road and Saxmundham Road going in and out of Aldeburgh has been highlighted in recent months as a persistent problem by the town council.

Therefore Suffolk police decided to assess the problem by placing speed-monitoring devices between August 28 and September 3.

On the A1094 Saxmundham Road a total of 33,895 vehicles passed the device. Officers found that 18,363 (54%) of them were travelling over 30mph.

The number of vehicles which could have been prosecuted for going too fast was 6,363 (19%). The average speed recorded was 31mph.

On the B1122 Leiston Road a total of 18,645 vehicles passed the device. There were 10,415 (56%) vehicles travelling over 30mph.

The number of vehicles which could have been prosecuted for going too fast was 3,447 (19%). Again the average speed limit was 31mph.

Pc Carrier said: “It was apparent that both sites have a number of vehicles passing which are travelling over the designated speed limit, although it also identified that a high number of vehicles actually travel below the speed limit.

“The data cannot state whether vehicles travelling in excess of the speed limit included any emergency vehicles.”