Motorists have been given fines of up to £300 after a special court was convened to deal with 40 people caught speeding along the same stretch of road.

Magistrates in Witham, Essex, have been processing all the cases in a single sitting on Friday after police in the county decided to highlight the dangers of speeding.

The court has handed out the fines and bans ranging from three weeks to six months.

Each of the drivers and motorcycle riders were caught travelling in excess of 100 mph on the A130 Rettendon by-pass.

'Madness'

One of the convicted men, David Axford, 33, was banned from driving for 49 days and fined £300 after pleading guilty to driving his Yamaha motorbike at 130 mph.

He said in court: "For 40 seconds of madness I have risked everything I have got."

Noorman Crabb wants to cut road injuries

But another defendant, Peter Drake from Rayleigh, was not so repentant.

He escaped a driving ban after his guilty plea but said: "I don't think I was particularly happy with the way I was caught.

"There weren't any signs on the road and I think there should be cameras there.

"It's a nice straight bit of road and people naturally want to drive along there fast."

'Death and injury'

Inspector Noorman Crabb, of Essex Police, said: "When we had more than 6,500 people injured on Essex roads last year, we felt it was important we targeted this part of road where we had increased incidents of people going above the limit.

"It's a high quality road of motorway standard but it's encouraging less than high quality drivers who drive along and fail to exercise safe control.

"They are travelling at excess speeds where the chance of having a serious crash is greatly magnified.

"The hearing is bringing a concentrated number of motorists together in one sitting to tell them what we are trying to achieve.

"It's to get maximum publicity about driving at such silly speeds."

The Rettendon by-pass was only opened in March and was built to shorten journey times in the area.

A total of 25 cases were dealt with by the court and the remaining 15 were adjourned.