ALARMED though many motorists may be by the plan today for a more than fourfold increase in speed cameras in Lancashire, sensible people will measure the scheme not in terms of drivers caught and fines collected, but in lives saved and injuries cut.

For the project, which aims to raise the number of roadside cameras from 69 to 320 over the next three years, is already backed by strong evidence that the cameras really do cut the carnage on the roads.

The scheme which Lancashire launched today is part of the second wave of a project already tried in eight other police-force areas and it is one which has been shown to reduce accidents causing death or serious injury by 18 per cent. In Lancashire, the strategy aims to save the lives of 40 people over the next three years.

Weighed against that and the fact that, according to the project's chairman, East Lancashire public health chief Dr Steve Morton, road accidents account for 8,750 hospital admissions and 50,000 hospital bed days every year, the need for curbing speeding -- especially in residential areas -- manifestly prevails over any drivers' desire to do as they please.

What, of course, is contentious about the expansion of the camera network is that it also allows police forces to keep revenue from speeding fines to spend on more cameras and stocking more of the existing ones with film -- a system that causes opponents to claim that the police force's priority will be as much to maximise revenue for its budget as it will be to improve road safety. It is timely, then, that the extension of the scheme to Lancashire today comes with the government announcement of new rules that will require police to site cameras at proven blackspots for speed-related accidents -- rather than, say, straight sections of dual carriageway -- and to make them clearly visible with warnings signs and not hidden behind bridges or trees.

The overwhelming requirement must be for the extra cameras to save lives, not raise money. And if that ethic is clearly upheld, motorists who are caught and fined cannot truly complain.