MOTORISTS caught by speed cameras that may have been installed against government guidelines have "no chance" of getting their fines back, an expert warned today.

Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation, made the prediction after it was revealed that 53 of 117 fixed sites in East Lancashire may have been installed where there had not been the required number of deaths or serious injuries.

A number of motorists have demanded their £60 fines back and the three penalty points taken off their driving licences if the claims are proved.

But Mr King said that because the government's rules were only guidelines, experts had told him that there could be no legal consequences of not following them.

He added: "I am not saying that is right, or defending it, but that is the situation.

"The Road Traffic Act which allows speed cameras says that as long as cameras are approved, a motorist caught breaking the speed limit should be fined.

"The Department for Transport's guidelines say they should be located at accident black spots, but those are guidelines and the law is the law.

"We may have some sympathy with people who feel cameras are not in the right places, but if they were caught breaking the speed limit they have no chance of appeal. If the guidance was an Act of Parliament, it would be a very different matter."

He said that he expected Transport Minister Alistair Darling to put pressure on groups, such as the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety, if they were found not to have followed guidelines.

Mr King added: "The DfT should pull all the partnerships together and sort out a national policy which is acceptable to motorists and the government."

Mr Darling's spokesman told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph earlier this week that he would be writing to the Lancashire Partnership to ask it to justify the need for the 53 controversial cameras.

In the letter he will also remind the multi-agency group, made up of councils, police and health bodies, that fixed site cameras should not be installed unless there have been four deaths or serious accidents in a 1,500 metre vicinity in the previous three calendar years.

The 53 cameras identified do not meet this criteria, but the Partnership said that it had interpreted the Government's guidelines in a way that allowed the use of minor crashes to justify a fixed site.

But its spokesman pledged that the full criteria would be used for new sites as he said the government was demanding a more stringent approach.