LANCASHIRE Ambulance Service is to trial a system designed to stop its drivers getting speeding tickets answering emergency calls.

LAS spokesman John Calderbank said the speed fine problem peaked last summer with the county's ambulances being issued with around 700 speeding tickets in a single month.

The problem for the emergency services is that static speed cameras, which automatically generate a summons for the drivers clocked travelling over the speed limit, cannot discriminate between boy racers breaking the speed limit and paramedics and fire crews answering 999 calls with blue lights flashing and sirens wailing.

Lancashire Ambulance Service NHS Trust has employed a new member of staff for 30-hours a week to deal with the paperwork from speed traps alone. In London, the problem is so acute the ambulance service now employs three-full time staff to deal with speeding tickets.

LAS is now in the process of trialling a solution to help cameras recognise vehicles on emergency calls and stop sending summons to the drivers.

According to the Home Office, section 87 of the Road Traffic Regulations Act 1984 means that police fire and ambulance drivers are allowed to break speed limits on emergency calls.

But Unison, the union representing many ambulance drivers, is calling on the Government to ensure that emergency crews responding to 999 calls are not prosecuted.

The problem is nothing like as serious in Cumbria because the county has relatively few speed cameras at the moment.

But plans are afoot from the Cumbria Safety Camera Partnership to introduce more cameras to the county's roads in a bid to cut accident rates and road deaths.

Mr Calderbank said that, if the solution to the problem currently being tested in Lancashire proved effective, LAS would share it with colleagues in Cumbria.