The county constabulary has overseen a 40 per cent reduction compared to a seven per cent fall across the country as a whole.

It has achieved this despite having no fixed speed cameras on its roads.

A commitment to common sense traffic policing which seeks to enlist the goodwill of motorists rather than to treat them as the enemy has been pinpointed as the reason for this success.

This outstanding result is further evidence that the fixed speed cameras beloved of so many forces are revenue raising devices rather than road safety ones.

While Durham collected just £169,000 in speeding fines in 2006, neighbouring Northumbria amassed more than £3million.

Treating motorists as cash cows for the public sector is clearly lucrative. But its manifest unfairness makes such an approach a very bad bet for road safety.

There may be a place for permanent cameras at a few accident blackspots but locating them on stretches of carriageway with no record of smashes for the purpose of fleecing drivers who have inadvertently crept a few miles an hour over the limit is totally unacceptable.

It is time for Britain to say goodbye to the GATSO.