The number of drivers caught by speed cameras has fallen for the first time, according to government figures which reveal that widespread complaints about excessive enforcement have finally forced a retreat by police and local authorities.

All of the main types of motoring offence, including illegal parking and driving without insurance or an MoT certificate, have declined. For the first time in more than a decade drivers are less likely to be given a penalty than in the previous year.

The RAC Foundation said that the figures, published by the Ministry of Justice and relating to 2005, marked a big change in the relationship between motorists and the enforcement authorities. Edmund King, the executive director of the foundation, said: “This shows the outcry by millions of drivers has finally paid off and forced councils and police to exercise more discretion. There is no doubt that enforcement was getting out of hand, particularly with the use of speed cameras.

“The authorities have finally realised that showing a small degree of flexibility can be more effective than huge numbers of fines, even though they are making less money.”

There were 438 offences per 1,000 licensed vehicles in 2005, down from 466 in 2004. The total number of motoring offences fell by 450,000 to 13 million. The number of speed-camera fines had been increasing since 1995 at the rate of about 200,000 a year, but in 2005 it fell by 40,000, from 1.91 million to 1.87 million.

Richard Brunstrom, the former head of road policing at the Association of Chief Police Officers, had predicted four years ago that the number of camera fines would carry on growing until it reached three million a year. But the number is likely to have continued falling in 2006 because the policy that allowed police to keep a proportion of the fines to pay for more cameras ended in April of that year.

The number of drivers being automatically disqualified for receiving 12 penalty points within three years also fell to the lowest level for more than a decade, down 2,000 to 29,000. However, it is unclear whether this was because drivers slowed down or because they persuaded someone to take the points for them.

Parking fines fell sharply in 2005 after several years of substantial year-on-year increases. The number reduced from 8.5 to 8.2 million. As with speed camera fines, parking penalties are likely to continue to fall because the Government issued guidelines this year that prevent local authorities from setting targets for the issuing of tickets by private parking companies.

Police focused more attention in 2005 on more serious motoring offences, with a 5 per cent increase in the number of breath tests to 607,000 and a 35 per cent rise in careless driving prosecutions to 186,000. Penalties for using mobile phones at the wheel also rose in 2005, up 53,000 to 126,800, but this was because forces had taken time to begin penalising the new offence.

The figures revealed a discrepancy in the number of breath tests being carried out by different forces, despite a guideline that states every driver involved in a collision must be tested. West Midlands Police carried out only 270 tests per 100,000 population compared with 3,200 in North Wales. The forces with the highest rates of positive tests per 100,000 population were South Yorkshire, Thames Valley, Dorset, South Wales, Hampshire and Nottinghamshire.