The aims of the West Midlands Police Camera Enforcement Unit are:
- Through a combination of enforcement, engineering and education, reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in road collisions in the West Midlands.
- Develop a media strategy, which will raise public awareness of the location of fixed and mobile safety camera sites.
- To influence drivers’ attitude away from inappropriate speed.
The department’s mission statement is:
“To promote safety for all road users in the West Midlands Metropolitan Area and support the delivery of the West Midlands targets for the reduction in the number and severity of road traffic accident casualties.”
To achieve this we work to implement road safety measures through education, engineering and enforcement. In order to ensure the most appropriate solution is implemented, we work closely with our partners at National Highways, His Majesty’s Courts Service, West Midlands Fire Service and the seven local authorities of the West Midlands (representing Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton) to identify road safety issues, determine an appropriate solution and, where appropriate, conduct enforcement through safety cameras and police enforcement.
Why concentrate on Speed?
Every year 2,000 people are killed on UK roads and more than 170,000 people are injured. In 2018, the West Midlands contributed 57 fatalities and 7336 injured people, with excess speed being a significant contributing factor.
For more information on the causes of collisions nationally, see “Road Casualties Great Britain 2018“, while further information on how causes of crashes are determined can be found in the “Review of the contributory factors system“, both published by the Department for Transport.