IN reply to Dave Snape's views (Letters, November 24) on my earlier remarks. What I wrote was not 'ageist comments' about young motorists.

It was the fact that by far the largest number of accidents are caused by drivers in the 18-27 age group - mainly because they are inexperienced - and, as the young tend to be, impulsive.

Many drive cars as though they are dodgems at a fair, often not giving their driving the attention they should.

I quite agree that the driving test is much harder now and needs to be, because there are too many vehicles on the roads today and too many irresponsible drivers in the age group I mentioned.

And, yes, I agree that, at times, some older drivers do hold up the younger ones who want to tear along at a higher speed, regardless of road conditions.

Coming back from holiday recently on the M6, I held up a young driver who wanted to overtake me and was impatiently sounding his horn and waving his arms.

He was urging me to drive faster and could not overtake me - there were too many cars side by side. Eventually, he managed to pass me at more than 60mph while looking back and shaking his fist at me. He then zoomed up the motorway at more than 70.

The trouble was, I was observing a 60mph maximum speed limit for roadworks and lane closures.

ALBERT MORRIS, Clement View, Nelson.

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