Camera not the answer on A290

Billy Stretton is right when she says “it isn’t the road that is the problem, it’s the drivers” [‘’We need speed camera to catch

‘I have a phone and a computer and I realise these masts have to exist, but why on the residential side of the road?’

reckless drivers’’, Gazette, Sep 17].

But like any speed camera, it will only detect speed, not how that person was driving,

It will not detect the totally drunk, stolen vehicles, or a vehicle being used in some form of crime, or make allowances for weather conditions.

Yet these types of dangerous drivers are used as an example to claim a road is “dangerous” and measures taken to punish all the thousands of drivers using this road, quite safely, every week Government policy for decades has not been about improving the driving standard; in fact, the opposite is true. The simplistic belief that downgrading speed limits is the panacea for all accidents is a total simplification of what safe, considerate driving is all about.

Similar muddled thinking is being used to ‘improve’ the A252 Chilham to Charing A20 road at a cost of £2,146,000. There seems to be no shortage of money when it comes to making journey times longer; meanwhile, potholes go unmended, foliage goes uncut and obstructs vision at junctions, and roads (especially traffic islands) become even scruffier with grass and litter and general detritus.

While councils are keen to grab this DFT funding, it should be remembered that it is our local rates that are spent in the continuous upkeep of such schemes.

These roads are perfectly safe and should not present any problems to a competent driver. But of course any form of real road safety education is dismissed, as it might be seen as encouraging driving, which as the current era of walking and cycling dictates, is frowned upon. Terry Hudson

Russell Drive, Swalecliffe