LET me say at once that I have no brief for drivers who drink.

That said, I also deplore unnecessary invasion of liberty by those in authority.

One often hears the police advocating "random testing" for drivers. Since there is no such law, how is it that 13,000 breath tests were made in Lancashire in one month?

Is it really credible that each of these resulted from a moving traffic offence or from the officer concerned having had reasonable cause to think that the driver had been drinking?

Why are the figures for the positive tests not being released? Is it because the percentage thus revealed might indicate that the police took a sledgehammer to crack a nut?

KEITH C REYNOLDS, Hindle Street, Darwen.

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