Evening Press Reader's Letter

I Am not sure how the National Federation of Bus Users' figures quoted by Doug Begbie (Letters, January 5) have been worked out.

A new car every seven years equates to a conservative £1,000 per annum and with road tax around £150, insurance £100, fuel for 10,000 miles £1,000, and servicing, parking and breakdown cover, say £150, totals £2,400 or 24p per mile.

I have just made the 60 miles return journey from Copmanthorpe to Pickering by bus for £5.50, ie less than 10p per mile. Longer bus journeys are less per mile as are fares in most metropolitan areas.

Only the shortest bus journeys exceed 24p per mile and it would take an awful lot of these to add up to 10,000 miles in a year. For solo journeys the bus appears to win hands down.

John H Meredith,

College Road,

Copmanthorpe.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.