ROADS in the South East are rife with hazardous drivers whose ignorance of the highway code is just as likely to cause accidents than drinking or speeding.

New research from www.motoring.telegraph.co.uk - telegraph.co.uk's channel dedicated to motoring news and information - reveals a large proportion of South East drivers don't know how fast they should drive on a single carriageway or when they can legally stop on the hard shoulder of the motorway.

More than half (51 per cent) are unable to name the national speed limit of 60mph. In fact, more than one in 20 (seven per cent) hasty motorists admit to driving at speeds of up to 70mph and, although the one in seven (15 per cent) who claim to plod along at 30mph might not get caught for speeding, they could well lose points faster than Michael Schumacher for dangerous driving.

Motorway etiquette also falls by the wayside as a third of drivers failed to name the legal reasons for stopping on the hard shoulder of a motorway. One in 10 chatterboxes admitted they would stop to make and receive calls on their mobile, a similar number (13 per cent) claimed they would take a breather to stretch their weary legs and a further one in 10 would even go so far as making an "emergency stop" to answer a call of nature.

Most worrying is the lack of knowledge about stopping distances, with more than threequarters of respondents hitting a brick wall when questioned. A cautious one in 10 underestimated the stopping distance for a car travelling at a speed of 50mph, claiming it to be 43 metres instead of 53, whereas over half (59 per cent) misguidedly believed they had between 10-20 metres more in which to bring their vehicle to a halt.

Michael Cox, head of motoring.telegraph.co.uk said: "Our research reinforces what we've all known for a while - as soon as motorists pass their test - all knowledge of the highway code goes out of the window."