* YOU BEEN SNAP* 86mph and you won't be fined: New speed camera guidelines allow drivers to go even faster... with no points put on licence"

By Flora Lyimo Desinger*
Motorists will be able to do up to 86mph but still escape fines and penalty points under a new police framework for speeding.
Although the official limit on major roads remains at 70, drivers caught exceeding it by as much as 16mph will be allowed to keep a clean licence by agreeing to go on a speed awareness course which costs them around £100.
The money raised will be used to fund more speed cameras or reactivate decommissioned ones.

Highway patrol: Motorists will be able to do up to 86mph but still escape fines and penalty points under a new police framework for speeding

Thirty-seven out of 44 police forces have signed up to the scheme so far, and last week Oxfordshire became the first county to put it into action.
But critics say the framework is simply creating a new speed cash-cow industry and allowing motorists to break the law.
Until now, speeding drivers have been given the option of attending courses up to certain limits, but now these are being raised.

Drivers in a 30mph zone are unlikely to be prosecuted unless they  reach 35mph. But if clocked anywhere between that and 42mph, they will be given the option of the course.
In a 50mph zone, prosecution is unlikely below 57mph, or 64mph if the driver goes on the course.

On a motorway or other 70mph area, prosecution will kick in at 79mph but the option of a course remains at up to 86mph.
Officials stress that the figures are ‘guidelines’ and that chief constables may impose their own thresholds.

Speed demon: Although the official limit remains at 70, drivers caught exceeding it by as much as 16mph will be allowed to keep a clean licence by agreeing to take a speed awareness course

Funding speed cameras from speeding tickets is now banned, and recent financing from council and police coffers has all but dried up as scarce money is diverted into other areas.
Department for Transport figures show that in 2009 some 588,000 drivers – excluding London and a number of other police areas – paid to take speed awareness courses as an alternative to a £60 fine and a three-point endorsement on their licence.
At £100 a time, that number alone would raise more than £58million. But with police forces now allowing much higher thresholds for a speed-awareness course to be offered, experts predict the figure will soar.

Outdated: Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has already signalled raising the motorway limit to 80mph, arguing that the 70mph limit was set 50 years ago in the era of the Ford Anglia

The new scheme is also proving attractive to the growing number of commercial firms tendering to provide speed awareness courses to police forces, two of the biggest being the AA’s DriveTech and Telford-based TTC 2000.
The courses are voluntary and are offered to drivers caught exceeding the speed limit by speed cameras or by police officers, but do not apply to 20mph zones.
Persistent offenders are exempt from the awareness courses and drivers may take them only once every three years.
A new national database is being used to keep track of offences and prevent drivers caught speeding repeatedly but in different parts of the country from abusing the system.
Robert Gifford, executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), said: ‘Increasing the latitude for motorists to do speed awareness courses means more will fall into the net.
'But the Government supports using the cash from the courses to fund the cameras.

‘However we must be certain the police are using the surpluses generated on cameras and road safety, and not siphoning it off into the general policing pot.’ 
Dr Fiona Fylan, of the National Driver Offender Referral Schemes strategic course development board, said the changes followed research into driver behaviour and how best to change it.
‘Preliminary results indicate that the course is highly effective,’ she said.
‘Those who attend indicate that they appreciate the opportunity to learn how to be safer drivers, and that they much prefer"