Our Aims

West Midlands Casualty Reduction Scheme (WMCRS) began in October 2002 (as West Midlands Casualty Reduction Partnership) with one primary objective:

Over the first five years we want to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on the regions roads by at least 300.

To achieve this we use funding from the region's specific road safety grant 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 West Midlands Police, the Highways Agency, Her 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. The Scheme is overseen by the West Midlands Road Safety Partnership.

To find out more about speed management and the use of safety cameras nationally, see the Department for Transport's website.

Why Concentrate On Speed?

Every year 3,000 people are killed on UK roads and more than 300,000 people are injured. Research into the causes of these crashes suggest that excessive speed contributes to more than 375 deaths and 36,000 injuries on the road—that’s almost double the number of deaths and injuries caused by drink-driving.

Changes to the Scheme's funding in 2007 have allowed us to begin working on enforcement and education about a variety of other road safety issues, including drink-driving, use of mobile phones while driving, failure to wear seatbelts and anti-social use of vehicles, along with continued speed enforcement.

For more information on the causes of collisions nationally, see "Road Casualties Great Britain 2007", 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.