An official representative of the Cumbria, UK Speed Camera partnership was caught lying this week about a ticketing machine that flashed passing motorists, regardless of whether they had been speeding or not. Mourners in a slow-moving funeral procession Wednesday were disturbed by the camera on Salthouse Road in Barrow which left them to wonder whether they would find a ticket in the mail. At first, a spokesman told the North-West Evening Mail newspaper that the flashing was intentional.

"It's a digital camera and we were just checking it was working properly," a spokesman said. "One of our technicians was working the camera to take random pictures so we could check that it was taking pictures properly and they were clear. We were not recording offences just making sure it was all working at certain times."

This turned out not to be true. Spokesman Andy James admitted to the Evening Mail that, in fact, the camera flashing was due to a fault with the camera.

"No-one will be prosecuted during the time the cameras are faulty," Jones said.

Last July, another Cumbria camera went haywire, despite being certified as "100% accurate" by a speed camera vendor. Since the Cumbria speed camera partnership formed in 2003, fatal accidents have increased. The annual death toll in 2002, before cameras, was 49. Last year, 59 died on Cumbria roads.