Letters
SIR,—Almost concurrent with Lady Wootton's recent indictment of motorists in general, we now have Pharos falling for the carrot being tastefully dangled before our motorists' noses— away with police on our streets and let us have some traffic wardens—so that our police can concentrate on what is nonchalantly described as 'more important work'.
It is a maxim of police training that the protection of life comes before the protection of property, and, as Lady Wootton so rightly emphasises, lost jewels can be replaced but lost limbs never. Will the annual slaughter of almost six thousand people be reduced by removing uniformed police officers off the traffic-congested streets? And how is it suggested that traffic wardens are to succeed with the problem where trained policemen have so far failed? Has Pharos never noticed the difference in the average motorist's driving when he realises a police patrol car is behind him, or a uniformed constable alongside a zebra crossing?
No, sir, what is needed on our streets is not fewer uniformed police, but more, plus a far more rigorous application of the traffic regulations by police and magistrates alike, and less of the sickly claptrap about securing the co-operation of the motorist. And lest it be thought I suffer from an anti-motorist complex may I add that I held my first driving licence over twenty years ago?
Yours faithfully, R. A. SWALLOW Parkwood House, St. Paul's Road, Keighley, Yorks.
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