YOUR correspondent Mr T J Longstaff, of Gorse Road, Blackburn, (Letters, October 11) suggests that as Department of Transport research on the causes of fatal and serious injury crashes shows that only 18 per cent of such bad accidents are caused by speed, we, the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety, are in the wrong for trying to encourage motorists to slow down and for installing speed cameras, which he brands "senseless irritants," in known accident hot-spots.

The thing is, we think Mr Longstaff has completely missed the point. We know that most fatalities are caused by driver error and inappropriate driver or pedestrian behaviour and have never actually sought to dispute this.

When we say that "Speed Kills," we are not necessarily pinning the blame on speed for causing the accident in the first place, but rather highlighting the fact that if you are in a crash, how fast you were going at the time of impact is significant.

There's not getting away from it, the faster you are going, the greater the impact and therefore, the most likely you are to be seriously hurt or even killed.

People will always make mistakes and have accidents. Our task is to reduce accident injuries and fatalities and one way of doing this is to encourage motorists to drive within speed limits so if they are distracted or something happens to involve them in a crash, they are more likely to live to tell the tale.

CHERYL BROWN, Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety.