DEAR EDITOR - In the Daily Telegraph this morning it is reported on the front page that a driver refused to pay a speeding fine and spent a week in jail. He remains unrepentant.

This item reminded me that last week along the A38 at Upton Warren, just by the caravan dealer, the police had set up a speed trap.

There were four policemen with two special traffic police cars. The cars were hidden in a driveway and the policemen were hiding in the bushes.

This stretch of the A38 is straight from the Shell garage towards the roundabout where the road splits to Bromsgrove and Redditch. From my observation point I didn't see anybody driving with excessive speed, poorly or for that matter dangerously. As far as I know, and I have been working in this area for the past six months, this road is not an accident black spot.

This was a blatant revenue gathering exercise.

We now refer to the police as Taxation Officers.

Do we really want, as a society, paying grown men to travel about in expensive cars and hide in bushes to catch ordinary people travelling a few miles an hour over an arbitrary set limit?

It would be interesting to know how many burglaries, acts of vandalism, muggings, car thefts etc took place in the Bromsgrove area whilst our policemen were hiding in the bushes preying on ordinary folk going about their lawful business.

It possibly explains why they have not got the time to investigate real crime when it occurs.

Eddie Brant

Bromsgrove(by e-mail)