Thousands of motorists caught speeding on the region’s roads had their offences written off after face-to-face speed awareness courses were unable to go ahead during the pandemic.
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More than one in 10 speeding offences detected in Norfolk and Suffolk last year ended up being cancelled, an RAC Foundation analysis of government data found.
The number of offences being dismissed was up 57pc from the previous year with 14,455 out of 95,181 speeding cases in 2020/21 being dropped.
The reasons why offences were cancelled are not recorded but could include faulty or incorrectly calibrated speed cameras, delays in issuing notices of intended prosecution or people using false number plates to avoid detection.
However, restrictions imposed during the pandemic also meant many speeders opting for awareness courses were unable to attend in-person, and their cases were ultimately dropped.
A Norfolk Police spokesperson said: “We saw a number of cancellations due to regulations brought in during the pandemic that affected the delivery of our speed awareness courses.
“As face-to-face courses were unavailable, some cancellations occurred while online versions of the courses were developed.”
Despite Covid restrictions, 42,288 speeding drivers in Norfolk and Suffolk did attend speed awareness courses, 27,326 were dealt with by fixed penalty notice while 11,050 were taken to court.
Excluding the City of London, where few people live but many people drive, those travelling in Lincolnshire were the most likely to get a speeding fine.
There was the equivalent of 16 fixed penalty notices issued for every 100 people living in the area in 2020/21, followed by 11 fines per 100 people in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Lincolnshire also saw the number of speeding offences being cancelled up by 90pc, however at least 19,000 drivers were wrongly identified as committing an offence because of a single camera error.
Dozens of Norfolk motorists were among those to have their offences scrapped due to the temporary camera blunder on the A1.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “It is correct that drivers caught speeding should face the consequences but it is also important that the systems of detection and prosecution are robust.
“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.”
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