IoS letters, emails & online postings (31 March 2013)

Easter is one of the busiest times on British roads, but in the recent poor weather, fog and snow, some drivers seem to have been in a world of their own.

In reality, they are in charge of a vehicle that can kill if not used in accordance with the Highway Code. I see drivers every day driving while using a mobile phone, or driving without the proper lights. The police and councils like to erect speed cameras, but other motoring offences get forgotten.

Speeding is their No 1 issue, but a Department for Transport study shows that going too fast for the conditions caused only 7 per cent of accidents. Failure to look properly was the top cause of accidents, at 18 per cent.

Nigel Bywater

Leeds

Patrick Cockburn suggests that investigative journalists will be struggling against a battery of legal regulations ("Our job has become that little bit harder", 24 March). But there is no proposal for state regulation of the press. It will be cowardly hacks like those who laid siege to Lucy Meadows, and their abusive bag carriers, as Richard Littlejohn, that will be called to account. And about time.

Michael Dempsey

London E1

"The NUM, for those of you who weren't there, was bought off with inflationary wage rises both in 1972 and after Heath called the election," writes John Rentoul ("40 Years After Dark Side", 24 March). This ignores the justice of the miners' claims. My father was one who was "bought off with inflationary wage rises" before being made redundant at the age of 62 in 1974. His last week's pay was a nation-bankrupting £25.

A Marc cartoon at the time showed a couple in a Hampstead restaurant. The man says, or words to the effect: "I always feel a little uneasy when the cost of a meal for two approaches a miner's take-home pay".

Eddie Dougall

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Doctors have warned about a virulent strain of tuberculosis for years and groups such as TB Alert, Stop TB and Results have kept up the pressure, but most people take no notice ("TB reasserts its deadly grip...", 24 March).

In 2002 in Timebomb, Dr Lee Reichman and Janice Hopkins Tanne warned of the danger on a global scale. In the meantime, little research into new TB drugs has been done, preference being given to cures for baldness. The human race appears to have a death wish.

Bill Linton

London N13

On page 87 last week we have "UK trade gap just gets worse". On page 90 we read of George Osborne's "40 steps to rebuilding Britain". None of this money goes towards helping to generate exports. I hope I am not around when our credit runs out. Cyprus on a bigger scale.

John Laird

Harrogate, Yorkshire

Janet Street-Porter reminisces about the AA Architecture School in the 1960s (Editor at large, 24 March) But while Peter Cook and his pals may have been plugging long-lived ultra-high density housing megastructures in existing urban areas, Cedric Price's housing studies over a 10-year period concentrated on recyclable 25-year-life, single-storey dwellings with gardens, at a relatively low density, on greenfield sites. I know which scenario I would prefer.

Stephen Mullin

London EC1

John Rentoul writes of William Hague, "a politician whose popularity continues to baffle me"("Could George Osborne fall on his sword?", 24 March). Could it be that Hague doesn't look like today's identikit politicians, and that the public warms to him as a result?

Tim Mickleburgh

Grimsby, Lincolnshire

Mr Bill Salaman aims too low, ending punctuation (Letters, 24 March). The Greeks wrote boustrophedonically – alternating lines left-to-right and right-to-left like oxen ploughing. An enterprising teenager could devise a Bou key, maybe replacing Prt Scr or any of the odd keys lingering like bad guests at the end of a party.

Andrew Ruddle

West Molesey, Surrey

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Letters to the Editor, The Independent on Sunday, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF. Email: sundayletters@independent.co.uk. Online: independent.co.uk/dayinapage/2013/March/31