Attacks on speed cameras soar
Attacks on speed cameras by disgruntled motorists have risen dramatically in the West Midlands, figures released to the Express & Star revealed today.
Just two were reported to have been vandalised or set on fire in the region in 2005/06, but that figure rose to nine the following year. In the year from April 2007, 13 were sabotaged. But only one vandal is known to have been identified.
Figures obtained by the Express & Star under the Freedom of Information Act show at least 16 of the 24 reported attacks in the West Midlands have been in the Black Country.
The figures show that cameras on stretches of the main Birmingham Road in the Walsall and West Bromwich policing areas have been targeted. All but three of the attacks listed involved the cameras being set on fire. The attack on the Watling Street East camera in the Bloxwich area was reported simply as "vandalism".
A camera on the Birmingham Road in West Bromwich was stoned in 2006/7, while a device on The Expressway at West Bromwich was "pulled over by unknown means" last year.
In November of 2008, after the period the figures cover, arsonists set fire to a camera on the Bridgnorth Road heading out of the city at Wightwick.
Insp Paul Farley, of the West Midlands Casualty Reduction Scheme, said a burning tyre had been used to start the fire.
It was the latest in a series of unrelated attacks on speed cameras in the region.
Insp Farley said: "If speed cameras are going to be damaged that is how they usually damage them.
"We have had some damage (to other cameras) recently but this is not specific to Wolverhampton.
"It tends to go in spates. We have introduced several more speed cameras of late which does tend to get an adverse reaction from some motorists."
Record of incidents
These are the speed cameras which police have records of being attacked between April 2005 and March 2008
Watling Street East, Bloxwich; Newton Road, West Bromwich; Pensnett Road, Dudley; Himley Road, Dudley; Birmingham Road, West Bromwich; Chester Road, Walsall – twice; Birmingham Road, Walsall; Broadway, Walsall; Pedmore Road, Dudley; Hamstead Road, West Bromwich; The Expressway, West Bromwich; Moor Street, Dudley; Stourbridge Road, Dudley; A461, West Bromwich.
