Police have collected 1.6m in fines from speeding motorists in just three months.

Now the money is being ploughed back to maintain the county's network of speed cameras.

About 40,000 drivers paid fixed-penalty notices in the Thames Valley region between April and June double the figure from the previous year.

Insp Malcolm Collis warned: "The message is clear: cut your speed. If you're travelling at 40mph and you hit someone, they will die. At 30mph half the people hit are killed and at 20mph the chances of being killed are even smaller.''

The rise in those prosecuted follows a change in Government rules which means police can use money raised from speeding fines to extend and maintain the camera system. It has also paid for more roadside patrols and extra police to track down motorists who fail to respond to notices. Insp Collis said: "About 15 per cent of people who are sent fines do not respond to the paperwork.

"Unfortunately these people would previously slip through the net because we didn't have the resources to chase some of the cases up.

"I don't want to see people get away with not paying fines when the majority pay up, so we're now able to target those people and we will be getting a further two officers for these inquiries later in the year.

"So far the money has been used to speed up the processing of fines, which means we are dealing with more a lot faster."

Under the old funding system, money from fines went to the Treasury, leaving police authorities complaining they could not afford to maintain and run cameras.

About 120 cameras are in operation throughout Oxfordshire and in 1999, 2.12m was collected in fines from 53,000 motorists.