Motoring misery Speedy Gonzalez

ARE you a bit of a speedy driver when you get behind the wheel? Apparently, there has been a significant rise in the proportion of drivers who admit to speeding on 60mph rural roads in the UK.

est figure ever seen by the RAC in 2016.

In 2021, 514 people were killed in a total of 11,827 collisions on 60mph non­builtup roads, a fatality rate of 4 per cent, which is higher than on motorways.

On motorways and highspeed dual carriageways, the UK’s fastest roads, as many as 60 per cent of drivers say they have broken the 70mph limit, either on most journeys (16 per cent) or on up to half of their trips (43 per cent) in the last 12 months. This is up by five percentage points compared to 2021 when 55 per cent admitted to having exceeded the limit.

LONDON motorists are set to suffer as households face a shortage of cheap car options to avoid ULEZ bills. There are only 5,150 affordable ULEZcompliant cars below £5,000 on sale in London despite 200,000 impacted vehicles.

Lower­income households looking to beat the August extension of London’s ultra­low emissions zone (ULEZ) face a dearth of cheaper options to stay on the road despite the launch of mayor Sadiq Khan’s £110m scrappage scheme, Auto Trader research shows. Transport for London estimates more than 200,000 drivers of non­compliant vehi­ cles will be impacted by the extension of the ULEZ to London’s outer boroughs on August 29, forcing them to buy a car or van which follows the rules or pay £12.50 to drive in the zone.

But according to data from online marketplace Auto Trader which includes 900,000 daily prices from across the whole retail market ­ the average cost of a used diesel car complying with ULEZ regulations is now £19,991 – with the equivalent petrol engine costing £15,000.

The average cost of a used electric vehicle is even higher at £36,102.

These are roads where more deaths occur than on any other road type, new RAC data has found.

Nearly half (48 per cent) of the 3,102 drivers questioned for the RAC Report say they have driven faster than the limit in the past year on these roads, up from 44 per cent in 2021 and matching the high­