TIME and resources are being wasted by ambulance services having to appeal speeding fines they clock up while attending emergencies, it has been revealed.

The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust, which covers all of Cumbria, had to appeal against fines that would usually amount to more than £175,000 over the last five years.

The service collected 1,750 tickets as paramedics raced to the scene of medical episodes, crashes and other emergencies in that period.

Many of the motoring fees are waived by police; however, there are calls for an automatic exemption on emergency vehicles to be better enforced due to the amount of time staff still spend appealing the penalties.

Carl Rees, from the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, said: “Common sense should be applied.

“Notices should only be sent out if no blue lights can be seen flashing.”

“Only three ambulance trusts in England – Yorkshire, South Central and East Midlands – received more penalty charge notices across the five years.”

Legislation in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 states that no speed limit should be imposed on motor vehicles “when it is being used for fire and rescue authority purposes”.

The appeal process involves an administrator checking against 999 logs to find out if the the vehicle was on a blue light emergency call or not, and then confirming this to the police.

A spokeswoman for the North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust said the trust worked with police to avoid as many speeding fines being sent to them as possible.

She said: “The North West Ambulance Service works closely with the police to prevent the majority of penalty charge notices being issued.

“In recent years the trust has fitted blue lights to the registration plate of vehicles so that if it triggers a camera, the police can clearly see that it is being driven in accordance with the law to attend an emergency and will therefore stop a notice from being sent out. If a PCN is issued to the trust the vast majority are waived after checks have been made into the incident.”