I DO not often agree with your leader writer, but your editorial (LET, July 8) is spot on regarding your reaction to the latest 'crusade' by Lancashire Constabulary.

Before I get stopped - as I undoubtedly will - in this latest onslaught, will the police answer this question?

Given that I must stop my car when requested to do so by a police officer, is it not a fact that, unless he has good reason to believe I have been drinking, or that I have committed a moving traffic offence, he has no right to ask me to submit to a breathalyser test?

The police are always asking Parliament to give them random testing powers. It seems that Lancashire Constabulary are quite happy to pre-empt such legislation.

Motorists are mercilessly taxed by the Government and persecuted by the police and local authorities.

When - in response to this treatment - we all stop motoring, who will fund the shortfall in revenue?

KEITH REYNOLDS, Hindle Street, Darwen.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.