OVER the past few weeks there have been letters of complaint from people who have been booked by the police for exceeding the speed limit.

Rather than the emotive language used about being a driver for a certain number of years, or the driver being a nurse, can I suggest we look at the facts?

In 2002 there were 3,409 people killed on Britain's roads and nearly 300,000 injured (38,155 seriously).

Two thirds of these crashes happen on roads where the speed limit is 30mph or less. At 35mph a driver is twice as likely to kill someone as they are at 30mph.

Being hit by a car at 40mph, nine out of 10 pedestrians will be killed.

Two thirds of drivers exceed the 30mph limit in urban areas.

During the first three years of the introduction of speed cameras, fatalities in those areas fell by 70 per cent.

These are statistics from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Unfortunately, statistics hold little value until you or your family areinvolved in one of these tragedies.

My own experience has led me to do all I can to ensure fewer families go through the trauma that we, and many others in the area, have experienced by losing a child, parent, brother, sister, or friend, through car crashes.

Fines collected would not even cover the manpower and administration involved.

The issue is not about money, it is about human beings.

The police are, quite simply, trying to make the roads safer places for all of us.

MRS MAL BALLINGER

Kidderminster

Full address supplied