JOHN Norwood's apparently nauseatingly conformist pious platitudes annoy me.

This is England, Mr Norwood. We are still allowed to criticise governmental policies.

Referring to the emotions of those related to road accident casualties is a cheap shot. That I have already acknowledged their anguish is a matter of public record.

It's a pity left-wing loony liberal highbrow do-gooders can't see the wood for the trees - nobody knows the "mobile" accident rate, yet draconian instant fines are the order of the day.

The politicians managing our affairs can't see beyond mug-the-motorist scams. Mugging motorists is big business. If our nation's five thousand speed cameras all do as well as the mug-the-motorist sentinel we have on West Walls Road, this government's mug-the- motorist scam will suck £3bn a year from the pockets of the law-abiding majority, while the unlicensed, unregistered and uninsured escape uncaught and unpunished.

I am frankly disgusted at the manpower, materials and resources that are being poured into these campaigns.

In my world, 5,000 people a year are killed in hospital by MRSA - a bacterium that lives in people's noses, 3,500 pensioners are forced to live in hospitals, because government policies are closing care homes and 10,000 pensioners die because they cannot keep themselves warm.

Thousands of our children are killed, or debilitated by the huge illicit pharmacopoeia that operates on every street corner, while even younger children indulge in the narcotic effects of lighter fuel and glue.

Where is the manpower, materials and resources, for those avoidable causes of death?

Mugging the motorist, for a minor infraction of motoring law, is akin to jailing the man that steals the sheep from the Common, while letting the greater felon go free, the one that steals the Common from the sheep, which, I would suggest, precisely sums up Mr Norwood's apparent sense of justice and social priority.

N TAYLOR, Worcester.