EIGHT out of every 10 speed cameras in Lancashire are dummies' not capable of catching drivers, road safety bosses admit.

But they are warning locals not to play Russian roulette' with the cameras - as they do not know which ones can flash' them.

The Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety, the police-backed body responsible for the cameras, says 84 per cent of the 293 cameras in the county do not work - leaving just 46 working cameras in the whole county.

That means Lancashire has fewer working cameras than nearly all the partnerships in England,. But the county still raised more than £5million through speeding fines in 2003/2004.

A spokesman for the Association of British Drivers says: "Lancashire has a lot of mobile units and they're always live. So the figures are a slight red herring.

"It's difficult for drivers to see which cameras are live or not and there aren't many who would be prepared to play Russian roulette with them. Drivers have to treat them as if they're all live."

There are 293 fixed cameras in Lancashire, along with 141 mobile loc-ations and eight vehicles - six vans and two motorcycles.

The road safety partnership's Linda Sanderson says: "This project is about encouraging people to stick to the speed limit and is only one part of the educational process. If people aren't going to conform to the limit and are prepared to take the risk they will pay the penalty."

The partnership was formed in 2001. Accounts show that in the year 2002/03 £3.674 million was raised in fines, in 2003/2004 £5.074 million was collected and in 2004/2005, £3.532 million.

Adrian Walsh, spokesman for road safety education group Roadsafe, says: "There is no doubt that inappropriate speed is a cause of much death and injury on our roads."