Paparazzi Lend Britney A Helping Hand

(CBS/AP)  The paparazzi that have hounded Britney Spears proved to be a big help Sunday.

Access Hollywood reports that photographers who had been tailing Spears and her brother Bryan helped them push their broken down Ferrari off a Los Angeles freeway.

The paparazzi then waited with the pair until police showed up. The Spears siblings were reportedly driven home in the back seat of a police car.

It was a unique twist of good fortune, after a rash of recent celebrity car chases by paparazzi. In May, a photographer following Lindsay Lohan crashed into the actress' car in West Los Angeles (Lohan had another crash in October). The photographer was booked for assault with a deadly weapon, but prosecutors found insufficient evidence to press charges.

In August, actress Scarlett Johansson was involved in a minor car crash in a Disneyland parking lot after being followed by paparazzi, and actress Reese Witherspoon said photographers tried to run her car off the road in April. No criminal charges resulted from those incidents, but the Los Angeles district attorney's office continues to investigate paparazzi photographers' aggressive tactics, said spokeswoman Jane Robison.

These chases by paparazzi inspired a California law, which went into effect Jan. 1. The law holds these aggressive photographers liable for three times the damages they inflict, plus they will lose any payments their published photos might earn. Publishers can also be held liable.