MOTORISTS are being urged to watch their speed as part of a new campaign to reduce deaths and casualties on roads.

Police will carry out daily mobile patrols at key busy times on roads across Merseyside to stop those intent on driving above the limit.

It follows an appeal from the National Police Chief's Council urging motorists to kill their speed before it kills themselves or other road users.

According to Merseyside Police, 26 people were killed, 531 people seriously and 2,449 slightly injured on the region's roads in 2017, with 65 of those collisions as a result of exceeding the speed limit.

Police are more determined than ever to reduce this number in 2019.

Nationally, 'inappropriate' speed contributes to around 11 percent of all injury collisions, 15 per cent of collisions resulting in serious injury and 24 per cent of collisions resulting in death.

Merseyside's Roads policing inspector Keith Kellett said "All too often, our officers attend road traffic collisions where speed has been a major contributory factor.

"We see the end results - damage to vehicles, disruption to traffic flow and congestion, injury to drivers and other road users and sadly, in some cases the death of a loved one.

"Speed limits are there to save lives and my officers are working hard to reduce collisions on our roads.

"We will continue to engage with the public to ensure the message to cut speed is heard loud and clear - together we can maximise the safety of all road users and hopefully see reductions in road casualties in 2019."