Speed cameras: where police will be watching in Cornwall this week

Planning a run to the beach or a drive up the A30 this week? It is worth knowing where the speed vans are likely to be parked before you set off. Devon and Cornwall Police have put out their weekly list of where mobile speed detection officers will be working, and Cornwall features on almost every day of the week.

The schedule was shared by the Devon & Cornwall Police Road Safety Team for the week commencing 3 August. The force does not name exact roads, only the broad areas its officers will cover, so it pays to keep to the limit wherever you are.

Where the speed vans are in Cornwall this week

For drivers in Cornwall, the county is on the list every day except Tuesday, when officers stay over the border in Exeter and East Devon. Here is where the road safety team says it will be focusing across the county:

• Monday: West Cornwall, Mid Cornwall, East Cornwall
• Tuesday: none in Cornwall (Exeter and East Devon only)
• Wednesday: Mid and West Cornwall
• Thursday: West Cornwall, Mid Cornwall, East Cornwall
• Friday: West Cornwall, Mid Cornwall, East Cornwall
• Saturday: Mid and East Cornwall
• Sunday: Mid and East Cornwall

West, Mid and East Cornwall all get covered three times over the week, on Monday, Thursday and Friday. Friday is the busiest day of the lot, with officers spread right across the county alongside a long list of Devon locations.

The full Devon and Cornwall list

The mobile teams cross the whole force area, so the picture beyond Cornwall looks like this:

• Monday: West Cornwall, Mid Cornwall, East Cornwall, Exeter, East Devon
• Tuesday: Exeter and East Devon
• Wednesday: Mid and West Cornwall, North Devon, West Devon, Plymouth, Teignbridge, South Hams
• Thursday: West Cornwall, Mid Cornwall, East Cornwall, Torbay, Teignbridge, North Devon
• Friday: West Cornwall, Mid Cornwall, East Cornwall, North Devon, West Devon, East Devon, South Devon, Plymouth
• Saturday: Mid and East Cornwall, East Devon, Exeter
• Sunday: Mid and East Cornwall, Exeter, Mid Devon

How the mobile enforcement works

The vans on this list are not the fixed yellow boxes bolted to a gantry. These are mobile units, so an officer could set up anywhere within the listed area on the day, on a main A road, a village through-route, or a stretch where drivers tend to drift over the limit. The published areas are a heads-up, not a full map, and the force reserves the right to work outside them too.

The point of sharing the list is not to help anyone dodge a fine. It is to slow people down. Speed enforcement in Devon and Cornwall runs through the wider road safety partnership, and the vans tend to appear on roads with a history of collisions or community concern about speeding.

What to do if you are driving this week

The advice is the same whether your name is on the list or not. Know the limit on the road you are on, watch for the point where a national speed limit drops to 30 or 40 through a village, and give yourself time so you are not tempted to make it up on the open stretches. Summer traffic, holiday drivers and unfamiliar roads all add to the risk in Cornwall at this time of year.

As the road safety team put it in their post, please drive with care and within the speed limit where you are.