Speed checks : Cumbria County Council

Cumbria Safety Cameras (CSC) is the operating arm of the Cumbria Road Casualty Reduction Partnership created by Cumbria County Council, Cumbria Constabulary, The Highways Agency and Cumbria Magistrates Services.

CSC operates from Cumbria Constabulary headquarters at Carleton Hall, Penrith.

The county not only has some of the most scenic drives in the country, it also has some of the most potentially lethal ones, with Cumbria having one of the worst accident records per head of population in the UK.

It is the task of Cumbria Safety Cameras to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured accidents, which in 2006 accounted for 59 fatalities and 282 people suffering serious injuries.

The public face of Cumbria Safety Cameras are the four highly liveried vans that monitor 50 hotspots that, between 1999 and 2002, accounted for 76 per cent of all killed and serious injury accidents in the county. The vans are owned by the partnership and maintained by Cumbria Constabulary.

The aims and objectives of CSC is very simple – to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured in accidents on the county’s roads.

CSC carries out regular surveys on the county’s roads using radar devices that record date, time, vehicle class and speed. This, together with accident statistics supplied by the police, enables CSC to obtain an overview of driver behaviour and driving patterns, allowing the management team to create intelligence-led road safety initiatives. The way that CSC implements these is through the three Es – education, engineering and enforcement.

Contrary to popular belief, the campaign is not about income generation. The Cumbria Road Casualty Reduction Partnership has invested significant funds and effort into the deployment of safety cameras to improve conditions on the county’s roads.

Cumbria Safety Cameras do not publish schedules for safety camera operations.