The AA today defended its decision to mark the location of thousands of speed cameras on its new road atlas of Britain which is about to be published.

The motoring organisation said that its decision had the backing of the police, and was being done in the interests of road safety.

But the move was criticised by Transport 2000, an environmental campaign group, which said that indicating camera locations would help speeding motorists escape detection.

The new atlas shows the locations of 3,000 fixed speed cameras and around 3,000 mobile speedtrap spots.

Nicola Atkinson, an AA spokeswoman, said today: "We have done this because we believe people should know where the cameras are for safety reasons.

"Cameras are put in places where there have been four fatalities or serious injuries in three years and people should be aware of these accident blackspots."

She went on: "We are doing this with the backing of the police. We are not really doing anything new, as people can obtain information about camera sites from both the police and the Department for Transport."

But Steve Hounsham of Transport 2000 said: "This is irresponsible in the extreme.

"The only people interested in the location of speed cameras are those who like breaking speed limits but want to know when they need to put their foot on the brake to escape being caught.

"The AA is helping those motorists who want to break the law escape detection. This is like publishing the position of all police stations in a special atlas for car thieves."

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