I WONDER whether the author of your Comment column (LET, September 10) has read any of the considerable amount of correspondence on the subject of speed cameras.

Whilst agreeing that some is from motorists caught by cameras, there are several regular correspondents whose concerns are motivated by a belief that the current campaign for saturation speed cameras is not only futile, but counter productive to the point where it is actually responsible for more accidents.

All current figures from both independent and government sources show an alarming increase in accidents in areas subject to saturation coverage and on a smaller scale nationally.

Perhaps your Comment writer could ask the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety why this is. However, having seen the recent statements issued on their behalf and by the local police authority, he is likely to have the same discredited statistics fed to him.

To use the figures for all accidents on a road to justify cameras when you know that speed is the cause of very few if any of them is both disingenuous and downright dangerous, as it means that you are failing to address the root cause of the problem.

In urban areas where the majority of car/pedestrian collisions occur, those which have speed as a factor are very few and in almost every instance have a major contributory cause such as drink, drugs or car theft.

I believe that cameras can contribute to road safety but only as part of a balanced approach and we are far from that at present.

The greatest cause for concern however is that the people using these statistics to justify the saturation policy know the truth and one must wonder at the morality of sacrificing road safety for the purpose of an agenda one can only guess at.

STEPHEN SADLER, Valley Drive, Padiham.