In this section you will find information around national guidance, as well as local policies and procedures relating to the operation of safety cameras.
Deployment Strategy
Not all camera sites are in operation at the same time. West Midlands Police can enforce any speed limit on any road in the West Midlands. The only requirement in law for speeding convictions to be valid is that there is appropriate notification of the speed limit to motorists on the road in question and evidence that the legal speed limit has been exceeded. We prioritise camera resources among the existing mobile camera sites, ensuring that cameras are deployed to the areas where they are most needed. Each site is categorised according to:
- The number of collisions resulting in personal injury at the camera site in the previous three years.
- The mean 85th percentile speed (the speed at which 85% of vehicles are travelling at or below) according to speed surveys conducted at each site over the last three years in relation to the NPCC enforcement threshold.
National Rules, Guidance and Best Practice
The documents in this section cover national rules and guidance for use of safety camera enforcement technology. These documents are in PDF format, please download Acrobat Reader to view them.
Please see below for the National Police Chiefs Council Guidelines of 2016. These guidelines cover the way in which new sites are selected, along with visibility and signing of existing camera sites and have been incorporated into the Safety Camera Protocols used within the West Midlands (see above). They do not restrict or fetter the police’s discretion to enforce covertly anywhere, at any time.
Guide for the Operational Use of Speed and Red-Light offence detection technology
Safety Camera Review
We are committed to regularly reviewing the location of our safety cameras to make sure that the continued deployment remains justified. All reviews will include consideration of the impacts on privacy.
The Surveillance Camera Code of Practice defines guiding principles for the use of safety cameras which are applicable to police systems.