FOREIGN drivers caught speeding on the region's roads are having fines written off because they cannot be traced. Safer Roads Humber, which operates a network of speed cameras across East Yorkshire, insists it treats all motorists the same, regardless of their nationality. However, Britain has opted out of an EU data-sharing agreement, resulting in some drivers slipping through the net.
Ruth Gore, the organisation's marketing officer, admits her colleagues are unable to locate, on average, 180 foreign drivers a year. But she pointed out this amounts to between 0.5 and one per cent of the total number of speeding offences in the region.
Miss Gore said: "In the majority of cases, where no further action has been taken, it is because our enquiry team has been unable to trace the person to a permanent address. Some of these drivers will be British.
"If a driver is from an EU country, but a resident in this country, they are treated in exactly the same way as a UK licence holder. But in order to serve a notice, we need to be able to contact a person at a fixed address and that's sometimes where the difficulty lies if the driver is a visitor or is moving around.
"We do our best to make sure that we do not, in effect, have to cancel tickets, and we try to ensure everyone is treated equally and fairly."
In the past two years, no further action has been taken against 2,577 drivers, including all nationalities, caught speeding.
Miss Gore said this figure includes a broad spectrum of scenarios.
"We will only send a ticket if we are certain everything is correct," she said.
"The 'no further action' figure, for example, will include emergency vehicles, which have set off safety cameras.
"It will also include mistakes that have been made."
If a car is caught on camera speeding, Safer Roads Humber will seek information from the DVLA, which holds the details of vehicles registered in England, Wales and Scotland.
Non-UK residents caught on camera speeding in a hire car will find cash is deducted from their credit card.
However, it is often more difficult for Safer Roads Humber, a partnership that includes Humberside Police, Hull City Council and East Riding Council, to locate drivers if they are driving a foreign-registered vehicle.
Miss Gore said: "It's a loophole, but there is not much more we can do locally. This is a national issue."
Last month, Britain, Ireland and Norway opted out of a new EU directive, designed to make sharing information across Europe much easier.
British tourists caught speeding on the continent are more likely to be punished because police across the EU prefer on-the-spot fines to cameras.
A total of 37,680 drivers were caught speeding in the region last year, a slight increase on the previous year.
Of those, 11,798 received fixed- penalty notices. A further 21,635 attended a speed awareness course, which they had to pay for themselves, while 2,651 cases went to court.
According to the report, the number of people killed or seriously injured on the region's roads dropped from 40 in 2011 to 33 last year.
Miss Gore said: "We work hard to reduce and maintain the casualty reduction across the region to help save lives."
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