According to news reports, the Chief Constable of Derbyshire, David Coleman was being chauffeur-driven at 97mph when stopped by police on the M1 recently on his way back from London.
Chief Constable Coleman is known for his "anti-speeding" stance and 59,000 speeding tickets were issued in his area last year.
Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign commented, "This is rank hypocrisy, and he's not the first. Assistant Chief Constable Steve Thomas was caught and Harriet Harman, the solicitor General was similarly caught. Perhaps the most famous of all was the (then) home secretary Jack Straw. When are these people going to preach what they practice and admit that 100mph on a motorway in good conditions isn't necessarily dangerous?"
Paul continued, "Road safety cannot be reduced to a simple matter of vehicle speed. It's more about consideration, courtesy, and matching speed to conditions. While we've been concentrating on numerical speed road safety results have stalled, culminating in a wholly unprecedented rise in the fatal accident rate last year. We must get back to the road safety policies that gave us the safest roads in the world as soon as possible."
The RAC said, "This is a serious speeding offence and one for which someone could expect an outright ban. They are the ones involved in promoting road safety and to be involved in a speeding offence clearly doesn't send a positive message to the public."
A Derbyshire Police spokeswoman said, "The matter is now being dealt with by Hertfordshire Police."
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