What on earth are these cameras turning us into?

Apr 18 2005 By The Journal

We must all be relieved that a public menace has been dealt with in the form of the local HGV driver who was reported recently being forced to plead for his licence and livelihood at court for allowing his HGV to travel at 48mph and 53mph on a major trunk road.

I can imagine the gratitude of other road users - once terrified by the sight of this monster tearing up the A1 - content that a criminal has been brought to book and who now creeps obediently along the highway, fearful of even the slightest infraction of the live saving 40mph speed limit imposed by far seeing authorities all those years ago.

I can also imagine the magistrates worrying that they may have been too lenient, and the police containing their outrage at such soft sentencing only by the prospect of his being a likely source of revenue quite soon from other cameras.

Other motorists should be calmer now as they contentedly sit behind HGVs at 40mph on a major highway knowing how it is so much less likely that its driver will career off in a murderous burst of speed, sometimes right past 50mph and even up to the 56mph at which they are thankfully governed.

Most of us applaud justice when it is properly applied, and I expect that many of the Speed Camera Partnership's employees and participants have no qualms about the rubbish they serve out to justify this kind of court appearance.

But I suspect that a few of them, like many of us, must be asking what on earth we are coming to.

Alan Dodd,

One way to beat the speeder is to fine the car manufacturer

IHAVE been saying this for two to three years now and, while the majority agree, no one has ever tried to do anything about it. Perhaps if it was printed in The Journal somebody "big enough" may take notice.

The Government has recently sanctioned the use of mobile cameras on motorways to catch and charge vehicles breaking the 70mph speed limit.

I have just read about a new (British) car that has a top speed of 175mph. This is openly flaunted by the manufacturer. Surely the way to prevent high speed on our roads is to fine the manufacturer for building these cars and advertising the same.

This way they could dispense with camera vans on motorways and the cost of manning them. Fining the manufacturers would provide more revenue than a £60 fine for speeding drivers while at the same time, hopefully, preventing potentially fatal high speed motorway accidents.

T A COMMON,

Councillor's comments have left me `boiling' with anger

IHAVE just read your letters article in The Journal. I am boiling at Newcastle City Councillor Stephen Psallidas comments for a "level playing field" for local shops and communities.

Sorry Mr Psallidas but your council are also squeezing out shops and businesses. Yes Tesco do exert unfair pressure with their "all in one shop".

But what about his council's policy on parking in the city or rates in the city. And its policy on small city centre business advertising?

Where is your level playing field?

"Support our communities" absolute drivel.

C MEDCALF,

Perhaps Willy's vendor had an unusual sense of humour

REGARDING Willy Poole's column in The Journal (April 14), and his reference to the trading standards people forbidding his roadside van bacon butty seller from describing his black coffee or tea as black coffee or tea.

In my experience, this sort of nonsense has usually turned out to have been cooked up, not by over-zealous council officials or even by the Commission for Racial Equality, but by some over-zealous right wing maniac instead.

Trading standards and CRE officials must shake their heads in despair when they read guff like this.

I am not suggesting that Mr Poole is a right wing maniac, of course - it is quite possible that he is simply the innocent victim of a burger vendor with a sense of humour!

SEAN PRINGLE,

Theatre Royal's Peter Sarah will be a hard act to follow

IT was with shock and sadness that I read of the sudden untimely death of Peter Sarah in The Journal (April 9).

Over the past seven years I have observed with admiration the way he transformed the Newcastle Theatre Royal from a struggling organisation to one of the most respected and successful theatres in the country. This took hard work skill, imagination and flair.

When the quarterly brochures arrived I knew I could buy tickets for practically everything with confidence, even when I had little or no previous knowledge of the company. If Mr Sarah had booked a show it would be good. He could be trusted to bring us the best. We had no need to travel to London's West End; the shows came to Newcastle.

As a regular Thursday matinee attender it was particularly poignant to walk past the theatre yesterday afternoon - just as the cortege drew up - on my way to his funeral in the cathedral. With a seat occupancy that would have delighted him, this service was a fitting tribute to the man who had done so much to put Newcastle on the cultural map.

But doesn't he deserve a more lasting tribute? Here are a couple of ideas to start things off:

(1) Name the "Barclay's Bank extension" the Peter Sarah Building and put a portrait of him in a prominent position in the new box office. From there he can continue to welcome theatregoers with that wonderful smile - assuming that he will (characteristically) find time between arranging angel choir tours and scouting around for the best harpists and other performers to entertain the heavenly host.

(2) Establish a fund - topped up with annual and other benefit events - to ensure that the work he was particularly interested in is continued: the outreach and educational projects and to provide bursaries so that young people can study and travel to gain experience in arts and entertainment management and, thereby, follow in his footsteps.

Thank you Peter Sarah. We'll miss you. You'll be a hard act to follow.

MISS IRENE WATERS,

All claims for insurance are thoroughly investigated

IREFER to your front-page story of April 13 and your comments on the introduction by Newcastle City Council of a whistle-blowing telephone hotline for bogus insurance claims.

You are quite correct in stating that it is the public purse and front line services to the community, which suffer because of this compensation culture.

However, councils do not simply settle claims because it is cheaper than defending them. All claims are investigated thoroughly and a decision on liability is made on all the evidence. Claims will be defended if the council believes that it has not been negligent.

The practice of settling claims because it is cheaper than defending them would send the wrong message to those people who might try to make a bogus claim.

MARK JACKSON,

Risk Manager, Derwentside District Council.

Give up 60 minutes of your time to help Victim Support

VICTIM Support, the national charity that helps people cope with crime, needs your help. It has launched its first ever national fundraising appeal to help it support even more people affected by crime.

All over the country, people are planning to `make some time for victims of crime' by giving up an hour to fundraise during the week of April 25. We'd like you to set aside an hour and join in to help. You can do anything you like to raise money for Victim Support as long as it's safe and legal. All you have to do is give up 60 minutes of your time.

To find out more, and to download a fundraising pack, go to the special Sunrise Appeal website at www.makesometime.org And if you can't spare an hour you can support the appeal with a £3 donation by texting the word Sunrise followed by your postcode to 80887. All donations will go to help local victims of crime.

We're pleased to be supporters of Victim Support. We hope you will be too.

Nick Ross and Fiona Bruce,

Victim Support National,

Pest control is necessary to countryside management

FARMERS are supposed to feed the people and none in this world are better at it than ours. Yet they are constantly hampered by seemingly endless bureaucracy from the EU and our own politicians.

Field supporters help create areas of woodland, wetland, headland etc to provide habitat suitable for wildlife and game. They also control pests that eat and pollute crops and kill stock. They are constantly harassed by politicians, antis and armchair moralists who have no idea how the countryside works.

Between them farmers and field supporters have created this beautiful and unique countryside that ramblers fight to access. Unfortunately, some think they have the right to trespass, allow unruly dogs to roam and spread litter.

Unlike R Sampson I believe most people could not care less about hunting foxes with dogs. I was one of those miners made redundant but I believe hunt servants and supporting trades are just as entitled to their jobs.

R Sampson ought to get out and broaden his mind, find out how things work in the countryside and how necessary pest control is to its management.

Or would he like his bread made from a mixture of corn and mouse and rat droppings? The price of milk raised because of TB spread by badgers, meat prices because of predation by badgers, foxes etc, grain prices because of rabbits, crows and pigeons?

LOL DUNN,