WHILE travelling in a Redditch coach last Saturday heading for the Shrewsbury Flower Show, we picked up several passengers en route and very soon it became abundantly clear we have an infestation of speed cameras.

Just like a field of mushrooms, they are absent one minute and in abundance the next and they no longer appear once on a stretch of road, they appear every few years and are reinforced by ugly scars carved into the road itself.

Such things, surely, are eyesores to local residents, just as mobile phone masts are, and we should all complain.

The coach also stopped in Longbridge to pick up more travellers and the plague is clearly in evidence yet again.

And when we arrived in Shrewsbury, the contagious culprits were everywhere!

Driving has suddenly become a joyless experience as one has to be constantly on one's guard. If you miss one cleverly camouflaged camera under a tree canopy, you've had it.

I am a driver with 40 years' experience and with an unblemished record, but for how much longer I wonder?

A gentleman friend was fined twice in one day recently and I certainly don't regard him as a reckless driver.

The Government of, course, will claim that speed cameras and their accompanying signs are essential and that they reduce road deaths.

Having driven on the Continent, especially in Italy and France, I don't think the British motorists need such draconian impositions (maybe they do in the two countries mentioned).

The real reason for speed cameras is, of course, taxation; yet another burden to be borne by the poor motorists.

At the beginning of the 19th century, throughout England and Wales distressed local folk reacted against the tolls imposed by the turnpike trusts.

Maybe the time has come once again for some direct action by the mass of prosecuted and persecuted motorists before we find such features as sleeping policemen, clampers and cameras waiting for us at the bottom of our drives.

One thing is for certain though - the French and Italian motorists would not stand for it!

I also note the infestation began after the General Election. Timing is so important in politics, isn't it?

Mrs A Noones

Oakenshaw South