SPEEDING drivers are a menace to life and limb. At best careless, at worst reckless, they blight our communities.

The introduction of speed cameras has done something to redress the balance in favour of safety on the roads.

But, if the experience of the village of Kempsey is anything to go by, more has to be done in rural communities.

As parish council chairman Joy Clee has told us, motorists flaunt the 30mph limits and also drive at excessive speeds on the de-restricted roads around the village.

The police can monitor certain points at certain times but, clearly, they cannot be everywhere at once.

That's why the radical Community Speed Watch initiative gives much food for thought.

The idea that speed guns will be handed to members of the public so they can keep track of speeding drivers may, at first, seem odd.

It is, after all, easy to conjure up a picture of a busybody, out and about at all hours of the day, crouching behind a hedge to train a speed gun on a passing car.

But the reality is far from that. In the Somerset village of Ash, where a Community Speed Watch scheme has been set up, the volunteers, wearing highly visible jackets, use the high-tech equipment to monitor traffic through the village and pass the details of speeding vehicles to the police.

The result? According to local police, speeds have been reduced and what was once a racetrack has become a safe road again. And that, we're sure, is what will happen in our counties too.