IN his letter, Peter Cunningham claims to be a serving police officer. The tone of his letter, in response to Janet West (Letters, August 7) suggests he also considers himself judge, jury and witness for the prosecution too!

He claims that nobody, whether pregnant or not is above the law.

Aren't drivers who have false plates or fail to register their car with the DVLA above the law? After all, they must feel a sense of security when they pass a speed camera at excessive speed knowing they'll never be caught. Their car probably wont have an MOT or insurance either. But let's not worry too much about that. After all, drivers like Ms West are far easier to target and more profitable.

I feel sure that non-speeding drivers under the influence of drink or drugs or those who otherwise possess poor reactions and car control also support the use of speed, sorry safety cameras. They, too have little to fear.

Their potential victims of course, still have much to fear from this country's cult like obsession with the automated enforcement of speed limits a trick performed under the guise of improving road safety.

If breaking the speed limit is a measure of how dangerous a driver is, surely highly trained class one police drivers are very dangerous indeed when they, quite rightly, pursue criminals at speeds considerably in excess of the limit.

Clearly what it comes down to is driver training, not just speed. Encouraging all motorists to take additional training would provide them with the skills to drive at the safe speed for the conditions. But the policymakers and those who blindly uphold their wisdom seem to think improving driver training is irrelevant. As long as they can slow all motorists down, it doesn't really matter if they collide with other road users. Crashing slowly seems acceptable to such people. This is madness. We should be promoting accident avoidance rather than damage limitation.

Instead of hiding behind emotional rhetoric, perhaps Mr Cunningham or the Safety Partnership would like to supply readers with the exact percentage of accidents for Lancashire where excessive speed is a contributory factor, according to police STATS19 forms. Data collated by the Transport Research Laboratory puts the figure at 7.3%. Significantly more accidents are due to poor driving standards, yet enforcement is heavily biased towards speeding.

Mr Cunningham makes the assumption that the camera unit that caught Ms West was highly visible. Maybe it was. But have I imagined all the visible speed cameras on UK roads that are still concealed behind trees, bridges or signs?

He also suggests all would be well on the roads if motorists would watch their speed while driving. I suggest watching the road instead.

Ms West wrote that she was losing faith in our police force. Is it any wonder?

SIMON TONKS, Gatehouse, Kinnoir, Nr Huntly, Aberdeenshire.