I READ, with interest, various comments in the Evening Press regarding the use of mobile phones while driving (May 28).

I do not wish to comment on the safety and legality of using hand-held devices while driving, but would like to highlight the following.

CB radios have been used since the mid-Seventies by truckers. Taxi drivers have used two-way radios for at least as long. And the police have used two way radios since before Z-Cars.

I would go so far as to ask if the action of smoking a cigarette while driving could be considered a distraction, or even talking to a passenger. I have often seen drivers who can't talk to their passenger without looking at them and taking their eyes off the road.

If the use of mobile phones, even with "hands-free" devices, is outlawed while driving, where are the lines going to be drawn? And what special qualities do ambulance drivers, police, taxi drivers, truck drivers etc have to have to enable them to do their job... telepathy ?

Steve Plows,

Ash Street,

Poppleton Road, York.

...WHILE fully agreeing with Dr Enticknap's observations of bad driving on the A19 (May 22), his solution is somewhat flawed.

His suggestion that speed cameras be installed to prevent tailgating, using mobile phones while driving and bad driving in general will fail.

Road deaths are now at their highest levels since 1997 (about the same time that speed cameras, speed humps and chicanes were introduced on a widespread scale) after a steady decline in the preceding years.

This, along with the Transport Research Laboratory's report which confirmed that only about 7.3 per cent of road traffic accidents were due to excess speed for the conditions, confirm what many of us knew all along: speed is not the major cause of accidents, bad driving is; and speed cameras do not catch bad drivers.

Only more well trained, highly visible traffic policemen on our roads can have any real and sustainable effect.

R J McBroom,

Westpit Lane,

Strensall, York.

Updated: 10:44 Friday, May 30, 2003