We are once again asking West Midlands Police and the Police and Crime Commissioner about enforcement of speed limits – particularly on the hundreds of Birmingham streets the elected council have designated as 20 mph to encourage walking and cycling; the very neighbourhoods where most people live, go to school or work and shop. It’s clear that many of these streets have a massive road safety problem due to speeding. The ‘revolution’ that was meant to make these safe for everyone ‘from 8 to 80‘ to cycle in safety, or even cross the road easily, has not happened.
So how are WMP doing at protecting the most vulnerable parts of the population (and disproportionately the youngest, poorer, slower and/or people with disabilities ) – given any crash above 20mph is potentially life changing or fatal ? …How does it compare with enforcement on the far faster roads where drivers (generally a wealthier demographic group) might get hurt – even in their air-bagged, crumple-zoned comfort of a vehicle, due to higher speeds ?
Here’s the dismal performance figures released as part of our FoI request for speeding tickets by road speed-limit bands (NB : these are for the entire WMP policing region of 7 councils or c. 2.4 million people, inc. B’ham where 32% of households don’t even have a car)
The key disappointment here is that the the hundreds of 20mph neighbourhood roads created by councils across the West Midlands get less than 0.1 % of enforcement effort, even allowing for the exclusion of Motorway/70mph speed offences (see note below).
Meanwhile the level of enforcement on higher speed roads (ie >40 mph) outstrips enforcement on 20mph and 30mph roads combined. Needless to say many such faster roads have little pedestrian footfall (many lacking even pavements) and are inimical to cyclists, but are seemingly the preferred location of camera van and their staff and other enforcement measures.
For the full freedom of information response including monthly breakdown please see file below. NB The column for 70mph offences is almost certainly incorrect as other FoI’s* indicate thousands of fines annually on motorways for > 70mph offences . The error may be due to most motorway infractions coming to the WMP’s Central Ticketing Office via National Highways maintained smart motorway cameras around the WMP region, so these possibly got overlooked in the scope of data under analysis
- https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sp50_fines#incoming-1678071 indicates that even in the Covid-reduced days of 2020, over 1600 drivers picked up Motorway speeding fines/court appearances for > 70mph speeding offences. https://foi.west-midlands.police.uk/motorway-fines-312a-24/ indicates similarly high levels of “SP50” fines.
Birmingham Living Streets campaign group 