SPEEDING in Lancashire cost drivers £7.6million last year after police issued almost 128,000 tickets.

The six-fold rise in prosecutions -- leading to £60 fines and three penalty points -- came after a dramatic rise in speed cameras on the county's roads.

Today the group behind the clampdown said that in 2002, the first full year of the programme, cameras had led to a fall in deaths and injuries on the county's roads.

But Blackburn with Darwen Council said the overall number of accidents in the borough was almost static, fuelling fears that more accidents were taking place on side streets as drivers tried to avoid speed cameras.

And Hyndburn MP Greg Pope, a critic of speed cameras, said: "While the figure of lives saved is good news, the figures need close scrutiny to establish if more can be done, and if speed cameras are being used to their most effective end."

The Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety was launched in October 2001 and introduced 150 speed cameras during 2002, with an aim of increasing that to 340 by 2004.

There are also 72 sites where mobile speed cameras are used and the partnership today pledged to use the money raised for more cameras and campaigns. There were 70 deaths on Lancashire's roads in 2000. Now, as well as the fall from 75 fatalities in 2001 to 66 last year, there were also 265 fewer injuries in accidents.

The Partnership was today unable to release overall accident figures.

But Blackburn with Darwen Council's planning and highways committee, which meets tomorrow, will be told that projected figures for last year show a fall of only seven accidents in the borough, from 547 in 2001 to 540.

The number of casualties for the first eight months of 2002 was 516, compared to 465 in the first eight months of 2001.

And the percentage of accidents and injuries on A roads in the borough has fallen, indicating an increase in accidents on minor roads.

A spokesman for the RAC Foundation, which campaigns for motorists, said: "What these figures show, especially the £7.6million, is that speed cameras aren't the only answer. It is just cash for cameras.

"But the fact so many notices have been issued shows that speed cameras don't always slow people down. The fact accidents on side roads appear to be rising shows that work needs to be done there too. If people know where a speed camera is, they will avoid it if possible and use side roads.

"Speed cameras are not just magic wands. They need to be part of a wider package of safety measures."

Ian Bell, project manager of the partnership, said: "We will continue to monitor the effects of cameras, but these initial results show that the introduction of cameras combined with the other road safety initiatives we are running in Lancashire, including an intensive education programme, are being highly effective in reducing casualties and speeds and indicates we are on the right track."

Blackburn with Darwen Council's highways officer Peter Van Eijsden said: "Possible reasons why the overall figures have not been reduced could be associated to the increase in injury accidents along minor routes.

"This could be because more injury accidents are reported to the police because of the claims culture.

"If the speed camera programme had not been in operation, the injury accidents figures could have been higher."

Chief Superintendent Mike Barton, of Lancashire Police, said: "These figures are very encouraging and demonstrate speed cameras are saving lives."