Letter: Speeding drivers

Sir: Thank you for your editorial comment about the proposals for even further restrictions on motor speeding ("Ministers are speeding in the wrong direction", 20 September). To allege that "speed kills" is patent nonsense. Failure to ensure that a vehicle does not collide with something or someone else does so.

Slower speeds mean vehicles are on the roads for longer: more chance of boredom leading to lapse of concentration; more frustration at delay in reaching the destination, promoting carelessness; more subjective "excuse" to use the wallyphone and so on; more time for collisions.

The truth is that carelessness, laziness and arrogance cause collisions which cause death. This means that those who drive too closely to other vehicles, those who "lane hop", those who do not signal properly, those who use their phones while trying to drive and so on are the causers of collisions and thus of deaths on the road.

But deterring these habits involves a bit of real work. Catching those who exceed a speed limit is easy: point a radar device or, better still, use a camera, and there you are. Simple. The really dangerous drivers are not detected, caught and deterred because it is takes a bit more effort.

It is self-evident that, in the event of a collision, the force of it will affect the severity of injury, and that force is increased by speed. There needs to be a collision in the first place, though. Without collisions, speed is blameless.

ROBERT ARNOLD

Quendon, Essex