A CRACKDOWN on the region's speeding motorists will be launched as part of a two week campaign across the country. 

From Monday (August 12) until Sunday (August 25), Cleveland Police and Durham Police officers will target drivers who break speed limits whilst on the region's roads.

Inspector Jon Curtis of the Cleveland and Durham Specialist Operations Unit said: “The purpose of this campaign is to target those drivers who commit speeding offences and put lives at risk.

"We want to inform drivers of the risks both to themselves and to other road users and educate them."

Nationally, it is claimed speeding contributes to around 11 percent of injury collisions reported to police, 15 percent of crashes which result in serious injury and 24 percent of fatal collisions.

Insp Curtis said there had been "too many" cases of families losing loved ones through speeding motorists.

He said: "The aim of the campaign is to encourage drivers to obey speed limits in order to reduce the risk of people being seriously injured or killed on our roads.

“There have been too many cases of families losing loved ones due to speeding drivers - the devastation left behind cannot be put into words and it can be so easily avoided.”

During the last speeding campaign in January, a total of 1864 drivers were caught breaking the speed limit in the Cleveland and Durham force areas.