Just a fraction of speeding offences detected by police in North Wales were cancelled last year, figures reveal.

But the RAC Foundation said the hundreds of thousands of fines cancelled each year across England and Wales as a whole are evidence that the system for catching and prosecuting speeding motorists is not working.

The charity's analysis of Home Office data shows that North Wales Police recorded 15,535 speeding offences in 2020-21.

Of these, 12,458 (80%) were dealt with by fixed penalty notices and 196 (1%) by speeding awareness courses, while 2,591 (17%) resulted in someone being taken to court.

Among the reasons why offences could be cancelled are faulty or incorrectly calibrated speed cameras, a lack of resources to bring cases to court, or cloned vehicles carrying a false number plate, according to the RAC Foundation.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said it is important that the systems of detection and prosecution for speeding are robust.

But he added: "The hundreds of thousands of ‘cancelled’ offences each year indicate they are not.

"At the very least it is an administrative burden the police could do without.

“We urge the Home Office to start collecting data from police forces about these cancelled offences so we can understand where the problem lies.”

The RAC Foundation said large disparities in the number of offences recorded by different police forces could be caused by the length and type of the road network, traffic volume, different policies by police and crime commissioners, and the availability of detection technology.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “How the police deal with speeding offences is an operational matter and will be enforced at the discretion of the individual police force.

“Motorists must obey the speed limit, which is there to protect and benefit all road users.

"Forces may take a different approach to speed enforcement depending on local issues, such as targeting dangerous roads to reduce harm or cracking down on high-risk offenders.”