A five-line e-mail tip-off to the Express and Echo in Exeter has prompted one of the biggest responses to a story that the paper has ever seen.

The e-mail told how a man had overturned a speeding conviction in court after showing that the road signs had been put up in the wrong place.

The paper discovered that the road’s classification was such that many more people who had been clocked breaking the speed limit could be in the clear.

And newsdesk phones have been ringing off the hook ever since.

Editor Marc Astley said: “More than 170 people have rung us so far and we carried the first 100 names on the front of Saturday’s edition.

“I can’t remember a response like this anywhere I have worked.

“It’s hit a raw nerve. It’s such an emotive subject and on this occasion that’s been borne out.

“It has been accepted that the speed limit is wrong and this sort of thing affects people’s lives.

“We’ve got someone who lost their job because of being prosecuted, and we’ve heard from a woman who faces being banned from driving.

“The whole thing has upset a lot of people.”

The names are published

Totnes Magistrates’ Court ruled that a 30mph limit on the A379 on the Dawlish side of Starcross was flawed.

Five drivers photographed by a mobile camera in a van parked by a grass verge were cleared of speeding after the court heard inadequate signs and the nature of the street lighting meant the limit could not apply.

Since the case was reported in the Echo, 175 motorists have contacted the paper to say they have been convicted of speeding on the same stretch of road and want their cases reviewed.

The ruling may mean hundreds of holidaymakers and local residents caught by cameras on the road will be refunded fines, have points taken off their licences and could have insurance premiums lowered. One family had been caught out four times.

And now the expert whose evidence led to the test cases being brought says he has identified two more illegal limits in Devon.

The wrangle has resulted in more than ten articles since the story broke, and readers are still queuing up to tell their side of the tale.

A Devon County Council spokeswoman told the Echo that they could not comment on the stretch in question because of the ongoing legal proceedings.

The paper was told: “The facts remain, speed limits are law for good reason — they save lives.

”They are appropriate to local road and driving conditions. When people drive faster than the speed limit, they are risking their own and other people’s lives.”