OVER the past months I have read with great interest the various comments regarding the abundant use of speed cameras in our area.

I now feel I have the proof we all need -- they are there not to save lives, as the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety would have us believe, but to gain extra revenue for our under-funded police force.

Where are the two major roads and the most fatalities in our area? The A666 between Bull Hill, Darwen and Egerton, Bolton and the A6177 Grane Road between Guide and Haslingden. Do any of these two sections of road have a speed camera? No!

Let us discuss the reasons why. Both roads are in highly-exposed countryside (not much chance of concealing the cameras here), both are single track roads which carry an awful lot of large, slow-moving juggernauts -- no room to pass, so all traffic generally flows at a sedate pace. No revenue to be made here, fellas.

On each side of the moors on the A666, the cameras suddenly emerge as soon as we hit the built-up areas, so it would appear that as long as it is only the drivers and passengers of cars who die in road accidents the road safety people are satisfied.

I have a major piece of advice for the departments which rely on the income that the speed cameras generate: stop all vehicles over 7.5 tonnes from using the Grane Road (which should have happened as soon as the M65 was fully opened), slap in a couple of cameras and, bingo -- even more dosh.

In closing, I often pass the 'mobile?' camera situated on the roadside underneath the M65 near Darwen Vale High School. Occasionally, as I go past the school, I see rather shady characters selling who knows what to the kids.

Still, never mind, let the police carry on their relentless pursuit of the good old British motorist. After all, who else will fund the Government like we do?

I am not speaking as a victim of these traps, just as a concerned law-abiding citizen.

ROBERT TAYLOR, Wisteria Drive, Lower Darwen, Blackburn.