BBC Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson is to receive points on his driving licence after being caught speeding, he has admitted.
The outspoken car enthusiast said he was caught by a fixed camera while travelling between Whitby and London and was driving too fast to be offered the option of taking a speed awareness course.
It comes just weeks after he and his team created a storm of controversy for using an offensive number plate in Argentina while filming the the BBC Two show's Christmas special.
Writing in his weekly Sun newspaper column he said: "Last month I wrote in a blind fury about how many speed cameras I'd encountered on a drive from Whitby to London.
“Well, it seems one of them got to me.
“Sadly, I was going too quickly for the speed awareness course to be an option. Which means I’m getting some points on my licence. My first in 30 years.”
Clarkson, one of the BBC’s highest paid presenters, was strongly criticised in 2008 for claiming to have driven 186mph on a public road, adding: “The speed limit’s annoying for people who have a job to do.”
Earlier this month Clarkson and his fellow Top Gear presenters Richard Hammond and James May sparked protests in Argentina after being accused of deliberately driving a Porsche with the registration number H982 FKL, which locals suggested referred to the Falklands conflict of 1982.
The presenters, who were forced to abandon filming by outraged people, said they bought the car - complete with the number plate - in the UK because it was the best available vehicle of its type and the number plate had not been considered.
The programme has already run into problems this year, with one edition found to be in breach of Ofcom’s broadcasting code for the use of a racially-offensive term during a two-part special filmed in Burma, following a complaint from a viewer.
And Jeremy Clarkson apologised after footage, that was never broadcast, emerged in which he appeared to use a racist epithet, although he denied actually saying it.
PA