THERE is absolutely no doubt that in certain circumstances speed can kill and limits placed on roads for good reason must be obeyed by motorists.

Cameras are one means of encouraging motorists to keep to legal limits and this newspaper has never been against them as a single weapon in a mixed armoury of measures aimed at reducing accidents.

But that isn't how their use has developed.

Our roads have been flooded with the devices in what looks like a one-note response to accident figures.

Many of them have been positioned just over the brows of hills or around blind bends - not so much to warn as to trap motorists.

This leaves the strong suspicion that raising revenue is a bigger consideration than simply slowing drivers down.

But despite cameras popping up all over Lancashire the death toll on our roads continues to rise - from 66 people killed in 62 accidents in 2002 to 88 people killed in 84 crashes last year.

Yet the response of the professionals isn't that other possible solutions should be looked at.

It's to introduce even more speed cameras - and to give them to local residents so they can catch motorists going too fast through their villages and estates.

The RAC Foundation expresses concern that the exercise will lead to people conducting vendettas on their neighbours and Longridge parish councillor Frank Priest isn't convinced it will work either. He believes mobile cameras add up to entrapment.

Rather than encouraging this potentially anarchic approach to the problem let's have some different, imaginative solutions like more flashing signs, speed humps, chicanes and appeals to common sense.

And while the police are at it, how about a much stronger focus on those young tearaways we frequently see doing 50 or 60 mph in built-up areas. How many more young deaths do we have to read about before the police start tackling this particular issue in a more robust fashion?

It's time the police stopped solely chasing those motorists who sneak above the 30mph limit in areas that arguably should often carry a 40mph limit, and concentrated on some of the more acute dangers we face on the roads.

At the moment they're doing nothing but alienating the ordinary motorist.