AS THE long-awaited summer holiday creeps closer and closer, police are urging Fylde parents to keep their kids away from motorways.

Senior officers from Lancashire Constabulary are issuing warnings to parents across the Fylde coast and the rest of the county through school bulletins before the end of the school year next month.

The initiative - run in conjunction with Lancashire County Council Education Authority and Blackpool Borough Council's Road Safety Department - aims to encourage parents to make motorway's "out of bounds" to their children this summer.

Each year officers are called out to dozens of incidents involving youngsters endangering their lives by playing on or causing criminal damage to the area's motorway system

Lancashire Motorway Unit, Inspector Phil Cottam said: "Between July and September last year there were 70 reported incidents involving

children playing on, over or next to motorway routes in Lancashire, compared with 127 incidents during the same period in 2003.

"Although this is a substantial reduction, it is still too many incidents where lives are being put at risk.

"The reckless behaviour police officers have had to tackle on the motorways includes children riding their bikes on the carriageway, sitting on the

central barrier, climbing along the outside of footbridges and jumping from bridges into rivers.

"Nearly 50 per cent of the incidents in summer 2003 involved young people throwing objects at vehicles from motorway bridges, this was reduced to 16 per cent last year - possibly because we didn't have such good weather during the summer.

"Missiles thrown from bridges endanger the lives of motorway users, which can result in injuries or even fatalities.

"Children need to be aware that police in Lancashire will not tolerate such acts of mindless vandalism."