Letter: White socks kill

Sir: The basis of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions' Speed Kills campaign is nothing more than an artifact of its own statistics.

By "speeding", the DETR means speed that is merely higher than the posted limit. It claims that speed is a factor in about a third of all collisions. The way it has arrived at this figure is bizarre, however.

If any of the vehicles involved in a road accident was travelling in excess of the posted speed limit immediately prior to the crash, the DETR chalks it up as speed-related.

So if someone runs a red light and clobbers another vehicle which is doing 35mph in a 30mph area it is considered a speed-related accident.

This clearly has no meaning in reality. The DETR might as well observe the footwear of drivers involved in collisions, and declare that white socks are a factor in an as yet indeterminate proportion of road accidents.

LANCE K GREEN

Newport,

Gwent