DRIVERS have hit speeds of up to 103mph in 30mph residential roads, an Echo investigation has found.

Under a Freedom of Information Act request, the Echo can lift the lid on the highest speeders caught on Dorset’s roads for the last three years.

One motorist was caught doing 103mph in a 30mph zone in Chideock just before midnight.

Another driver was clocked near Upton County Park one lunchtime doing 124mph in a 70mph zone.

Other drivers have been caught doing 71mph and 101mph in a 30mph zone.

The fastest speeders have faced court. Other culprits are attending Driver Awareness Schemes (DAS) that aim to re-educate people about road safety.

Pensioner Tony Fuller – who led a protest against traffic congestion in Chideock, the village where a speed camera was vandalised yesterday – said: “The police are planning to switch off the speed cameras and we are told there will be cuts to the force budget, so how many 103mph drivers are there going to be in the future?”

Mr Fuller said he wasn’t surprised by the figures and said most speeders chanced it at night when there is less traffic.

Dorset Police Assistant Chief Constable Adrian Whiting warned that if a child was hit by a vehicle at 40 mph they would have a significantly lower chance of surviving than at 20mph or 30mph.

He said: “The faster a car is travelling the more energy will be released in a crash.

“When you get to 103mph the injuries caused are obviously going to be fatal unless by some amazing fluke.”

The revelations come midway through Dorset’s No Excuse campaign to improve road safety.

Police will be giving people the option to be involved in Community Speed Watch schemes, where they can speed check vehicles. This information will then be passed on to the police.

The chairman of the Wyke Regis Partners and Communities Together (PACT) group in Weymouth and a campaigner for the ‘20 is plenty’ road signs condemned the high speeds.

Lucy Hamilton said that she was ‘astounded’ by the speeds people had done through residential areas. But she praised the work of Dorset Police and the DAS scheme.

She said: “It’s absolutely shocking, it just takes an instant for a child to be killed.

“It’s very easy to go over 30 mph – lots of us have done it by mistake and I did the DAS programme.

“But doing 103mph in a 30mph limit is a different matter altogether.”