I WAS totally amazed by your report and editorial concerning the lowering of speed limits on housing estates (LET, September 15) to protect the "innocent little children and stop the carnage of their precious little lives" (my words) on our roads.

This was particularly so in view of the incident I was involved in earlier that evening and, since the speed humps have been installed, is one that has happened to me all too frequently!

I was travelling in my car through a certain council estate in Darwen. The speed humps and parked cars made it totally impossible for me to travel at more than 15mph on average.

Two children (brats - next generation thugs in the making) were struggling with each other in the gutter, pushing and shoving and laughing as they did so. I was approximately eight feet away from them when one child gave the other a tremendous push - right in the path of my car.

I applied my brakes hard, jolted to a stop and suddenly realised that the struggle they were having was to try to throw each other under the wheels of my car!

When I remonstrated with them on their stupid behaviour, I was met with a stream of obscene abuse and they ran away laughing.

Now, the question is, if I had been a little closer to them, had not been able to stop in time and had knocked the 'poor little innocent child' down, would I have been castigated as an irresponsible motorist, taken to court and heavily fined or worse, when the fault lay with the children themselves and their stupid parents for not teaching them road sense? On the subject of teaching, when did anyone last see a road safety campaign during the children's TV programmes? If it comes to that, when did anyone see a road safety campaign for pedestrians in any form lately?

All motorists see pedestrian stupidity daily - the mothers who stand at the kerb on busy roads, making sure that their children's prams are well and truly in the roadway; the zombies who cross the road with a blank expression without once stopping to check whether there is traffic or not; the crossing clots who are fully convinced that the flashing green light and the red light are the signal for them to dash across the crossing.

Every year, I get legally mugged by the Government for road tax that is used to prop up the ailing health and social services. Each day, I am legally robbed by that same government in petrol taxes.

I do not pay these taxes in the expectation that I shall be providing skateboard, roller blade and BMX bike launch pads for children every few yards, nor for the buying of football goalposts, cricket pitches or any other game that is in season. I pay them to allow my car to travel legally - a little thing that politicians, national and local, seem to have forgotten. Dark nights will soon be upon us, and how many of the doting parents will allow their precious little ones out on bicycles with no lights and dark clothing? How many cyclists of all ages will be prosecuted for riding a bicycle without lights? - a road traffic offence!

Road safety has got to be a two-way approach - education of motorist and pedestrian alike. After all, when I am not in my car I am a pedestrian, but, because I drive, I have a little more consideration for the motorist and do not abuse the roads.

How I long to see the American 'jaywalking' laws applied in this country. The traffic wardens would have a field day and the courts would hit on an absolute goldmine!

ALAN LIGHTBOWN-WHALLEY, Petre Crescent, Rishton.

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