Driver caught doing over 70mph at New Forest animal accident black-spot

A DRIVER was caught by police doing over 70mph on one of the New Forest’s worst roads for animal accidents.

Hampshire Specials tweeted: “74mph on the B3078 Roger Penny Way in the dark and wet! This road has a 40mph limit and has one of the highest animal casualty rates in the New Forest.

"Not acceptable! This driver is off to court.”

The New Forest Roads Campaign said in a statement it was “absolutely disgusted by this speed”.

It said: “We thank god this one was caught tonight by Hants police. Hitting an animal at this speed would not only result in the animal being killed, but possibly the driver too.”

Tony Hockley, chair of the Commoners’ Defence Association, said: “Commoners are really grateful to the local police for keeping up their great work whatever the weather, bringing people like this to court.

“This is the sort of terrifying behaviour by a few drivers that we’re all too familiar with.

"It really isn’t worth the risk to save a couple of minutes on the journey.

“We’ve been working hard with multiple partners to bring to fruition plans to try average speed cameras on this high risk Forest road and are pleased that Community SpeedWatch now have permission to operate on a wider range of New Forest roads.

“But to really keep up the progress we’ve made in halving the number of animal deaths in 20 years we need more people to realise that it is well worth two or three minutes more on a journey to keep them safe and the New Forest very special.”