He believes that accident "blackspots" are often caused by poor road engineering and argues that 84 per cent crashes involving pedestrians were not the fault of the driver.There was a "wealth of anecdotal evidence" that drivers slowing down to avoid being caught by a camera had caused accidents, he said.Mr Darling said cameras did not constitute "the whole answer". He said a series of measures had to be applied such as better education and the introduction of speed humps. Mr Darling confirmed that his department was reviewing the level of penalty points and fines.'Deterrent' that trapped a million drivers The money raised Motorists were trapped 1.1 million times by speed and traffic light cameras in 2001, a rise of 39 per cent. At £40 per fixed penalty notice, that means a revenue of £44m. This will grow with the increase in cameras (see right) and a recent rise in the fixed penalty fine to £60. How many are there? Reliable figures are hard to obtain because police forces administer their own schemes, but one estimate is 4,500.

Thousands more are planned, including 1,000 in London, where there are now 650. More mobile cameras will be installed in police vans sent to accident blackspots Camera facts Each camera costs between £30,000 and £40,000 About 600 speeding fines pay for one. Motorists have come up with all manner of ruses to disable them, from dumping tyres on them to blowing them up. This week the first driver was arrested for using a laser "jammer" to stop a camera working.. The bottom has fallen out of the hamper market, if figures released yesterday by Fortnum & Mason are any guide. A slump in corporate Christmas hamper sales and a fall in overseas visitors were largely to blame.Executives at Fortnum's, established 300 years ago by a royal footman selling second-hand candles, were tight-lipped on the profits drop.

The company released a two-line statement insisting that its sales performance had improved. But accounts and a directors' report revealed that corporate orders for its goody baskets – which cost from £30 to £500 – had fallen substantially amid "difficult" trading conditions.Jana Khayat, the company's chairwoman, said it had been hit by the economic effects of the 11 September attacks and the drop in tourism."[Our] business suffered reductions in the number of visitors to central London in the run-up to the key Christmas period and in the value of corporate hamper orders at Christmas," she said.The company, taken into private ownership 18 months ago after 62 years with a stock market listing, had been criticised for its old-fashioned style and failure to concentrate on its lucrative food brand. But the store on Piccadilly is trying to spread its appeal, offering an internet mail order service. It announced last year that it was to start opening on Sundays and would introduce performance-related bonuses for its staff.Among the 23 hampers available on its website – which shows a Fortnum's wicker basket on its home page – is the top-of-the-range Bloomsbury, containing 23 items ranging from a magnum of brut reserve champagne to a 2.5kg stilton.The online operation helped to keep the store in the black with overseas sales bringing in profits of £712,000 – although this figure was down from £783,000 the year before. Total sales were down 2.5 per cent to just over £40m.Whether the corporate hamper recession was symptomatic of a wider decline in demand for basketed goods was unclear.

Park Group, one of the largest suppliers of Christmas hampers, reported a significant fall in sales in the mid-90s but insisted demand for the product was still strong. The British hamper market was valued at £200m last year, half that of 20 years ago.Marks & Spencer said its hamper sales were still buoyant.. Armoured vehicles and hundreds of troops were drafted in to protect Heathrow airport yesterday after security services received intelligence of a terrorist threat. The festival runs from today until Saturday.Scotland Yard refused to reveal the substance of the threat but terror experts said it pointed to a possible missile attack on a plane similar to the one carried out by al-Qa'ida terrorists in Kenya last year. Chris Yates, an expert with the specialist journal Jane's Airport Review, said: "The key here is perimeter security. We can put all sorts of technology and security in airports but it doesn't take an Einstein to work out that you can park around the perimeter and launch something like a missile."Hours after the soldiers arrived, police began stopping vehicles under the flightpath near the village of Wraysbury in Berkshire. In Windsor, which is also under the main Heathrow flightpath, soldiers patrolled the town and troops manned entrances to Windsor Great Park and searched wooded areas.