Excessive speed remains the leading cause of fatal road accidents across Europe. With more than 25,000 deaths recorded each year, the issue has become a genuine public safety emergency. In response, Roadpol – the European traffic police network – has announced the first Speed Operation of 2025, a continent-wide campaign of speed checks taking place from 7 to 13 April.
The key event will be the Speed Marathon on Wednesday 9 April: 24 consecutive hours of intensive, coordinated checks, with thousands of officers mobilised simultaneously in over twenty countries. It is the world’s largest initiative against speeding, a synchronised and far-reaching operation based on an integrated strategy of prevention, enforcement and awareness-raising.
In 2024, the Speed Marathon led to the identification of more than 150,000 speed limit violations in a single day. Thousands of driving licences were suspended for serious offences, while many drivers were stopped, fined and informed about the dangers of speeding. As Jana Peleskova of the Czech police, who chairs Roadpol’s operational group, emphasised, “speed itself is not dangerous – excessive speed is. Limits exist for a reason. The Speed Marathon is not intended to punish, but to put road safety back at the centre of public attention. Respecting speed limits can save lives”.
In 2025, the operation is taking a step further by encouraging direct citizen involvement. In the Czech Republic and Estonia, for instance, residents have been invited to report the locations most affected by speeding. In the Czech Republic, a road safety portal allows people to indicate dangerous spots such as busy junctions, school zones or stretches of poor visibility. The information gathered helps law enforcement identify the areas that require the closest monitoring. Other countries, including France, Serbia, Hungary, Ireland, Croatia and Luxembourg, are adopting similar approaches, making communities active participants in the fight against dangerous driving speeds.
During the operation, officers will be deployed at strategic locations with mobile speed cameras, laser guns, patrol vehicles equipped with onboard cameras and automated monitoring systems. In 2023, more than 3 million vehicles were checked at over 10,000 sites across Europe, many of them selected based on tips from local citizens. The 2025 deployment will be equally extensive, with over 150,000 officers involved, tens of thousands of control sites and a network of cutting-edge technology to ensure the operation’s effectiveness.
Roadpol’s Speed Operation, carried out as part of the Strider III project co-funded by the European Commission, stands as a concrete example of transnational cooperation. Speeding is a problem that knows no borders, and the response must be equally united and coordinated.
