Nearly 70 drivers are being caught speeding every day in the north-east with hundreds of thousands of pounds being pocketed by the UK treasury as a result.
Almost 12,360 speeding motorists were caught in Aberdeen City, Shire and Moray between April and September.
This is a rise of more than 1,500 on the same period last year.
Campaigners say the figures are disappointing, with calls for driving at excess speed to become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving or not wearing a seatbelt.
Graham Shanks, safety camera manager at the North East Safety Camera Partnership, said: “It is disappointing to see so many drivers continue to ignore the speed limits.
“Over a period of time, I hope just like drink-driving and not wearing seatbelts, we will see speeding become as socially unacceptable. There is overwhelming evidence that when people have an accident, it is much worse when the speed is high.” He said the single most common cause of death for older teenage girls was road accidents, with most of the victims passengers.
The figures come in light of a crackdown on bad drivers in the first six months of the new single force, Police Scotland. A series of police operations almost doubled the number of speeding motorists caught in the Shire, Moray and City divisions between April and September. A total of 3,563 drivers were captured by police during this period.
In addition, a further 8,794 drivers were caught by speed cameras in the three areas, raising almost £800,800 for public coffers with fines at £100 a time.
Drivers also receive three penalty points if caught by a speed camera.
June Ross set up road safety group Don’t You Forget About Me (DYFAM) following the death of her son Ian in an accident near Monymusk, Aberdeenshire, in June 2010. She said she was surprised at the figures, but added that driving at speed was just one of a number of problems that made roads unsafe.
She said: “Speeding definitely does cause accidents, deaths and injuries. However, speeding is done out of frustration down to poor roads. Poor driving is not just speeding, it is people who go slow and who have poor concentration.”