LIFE-SAVING average speed cameras on one of East Lancashire’s most notoriously dangerous routes are being installed ready to go live in November.

The tall, yellow 'smart motorway-style' poles along the twisty Grane Road over the moors between Blackburn and Haslingden started going up this week at strategic locations prior to testing by the contractor and police.

Councillors are now calling for the sophisticated devices with Automatic Number Plate Recognition to be activated on the B6232 as soon as possible in a bid to cut accidents and save lives.

They also want the cameras used to prosecute lorry drivers illegally using the road, which connects the M65 Junction 5 to the A56 through Rossendale to Manchester, as a short cut.

The measure is the latest bid to cut casualties on the Grane Road which has concerned safety campaigners for decades, with dozens of serious accidents and several deaths in recent years, including three in just 18 months in 2013/14.

Yesterday it was again shut during the morning rush-hour after a three-car crash at its junction with Jackson Heights Road at 7.10am. Cars were backed up as far as the M65 on the Blackburn side.

The cameras will detect licence plates and calculate a vehicle’s average speed by measuring the time taken to travel between two points and the ANPR technology can identify lorries defying weight restrictions.

They are sited at several locations between the Holden Arms near the A56 interchange and the junction with Sough Lane in Belthorn.

A police spokesman said: "The poles and cameras are now going up and the software needs to be installed and tested.

"That will take place next month and the cameras will go live in November after all the legal processes have been gone through and then enforcement will start."

County Cllr Peter Britcliffe, who represents Belthorn, said: "I welcome the cameras going up as this is one of the most dangerous roads in East Lancashire.

"I want to see them go live and enforcement start as soon as possible, preferably before November, as the winter weather closes in.

"I hope they will also be used to prosecute overweight lorries using the Grane Road, which only add to the danger to the route, as well as speeding motorists."

Helmshore councillor Tony Haworth, who lives just off the B6232, said: "These cameras should encourage more responsible driving along a road which has many accident blackspots.

"Many motorists do not realise how dangerous and twisty it is and drive overconfidently and too fast.

"I want the cameras in action as soon as possible and want heavy lorries who should not be on the Grane Road prosecuted and deterred."

The installation of the cameras follows the Lancashire Telegraph's ‘Stop the Madness’ campaign last year which calls on drivers to take more care and stick to speed limits.

In June 2013 tour operator Allahrukhu Satia, 47, from Blackburn, was killed when his black Chrysler Voyager careered off the road in Belthorn ploughing through a wall into the side of a house.

In April that year Mohammed Nasseer Nassib, 33, died of multiple injuries following the horror smash in Haslingden.

A 20-year-old man from Ashton-under-Lyne was killed and three others injured in a crash in August 2014 when a Mini Cooper flipped over after colliding with a Mercedes C200 near the Grey Mare on the high-level route.

The new cameras are being installed on eight known 'danger roads, across the county in a £2.15million scheme to reduce casualty numbers by the The Lancashire Road Safety Partnership

In the past six years, 13 people have died on Lancashire’s roads and more than 400 have suffered injuries, 62 of them life-changing.

In June average speed cameras went live on the A675 from the M65 junction 3 to Belmont Village.

Others routes earmarked for the scheme include the A682 Gisburn Road, between the A59 at Gisburn and Whittycroft Avenue, Higherford, sections of the A6 and the A59 near Preston, the A588 in Pilling and the A565 in Banks.