Don’t blame buses, blame the traffic

M ROCHESTER (July 15) complains about the National Express No.20; the Bedworth to Coventry bus service, citing long delays and sometimes three turning up simultaneously.

This is an excellent service with generally courteous drivers. I am in my 80s and use this service and have no complaints.

I can explain the occasional late running that your correspondent complains about. It is called traffic congestion, caused by the volume of cars on this road. Buses cannot leap over these cars and are held up in regular traffic jams caused by cars, of which eight out of ten seem to be single occupant.

I live on this road and from my window I see what happens, sometimes traffic will move a quarter of a mile in ten to 15 minutes. Please don’t complain about public transport. The number of cars on our roads is intolerable.

I use a car and also use the very good public transport. I am sometimes part of the congestion when using my car. John Thompson Exhall 1554: Mary I married Philip II of Spain. 1587: Christianity was banned in Japan. 1848: Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl, prime minister from 1902-05, was born in Scotland. 1894: Walter Brennan, US actor, was born. 1909: Louis Bleriot became the first man to fly across the Channel, in his three-cylinder monoplane. 1959: The hovercraft made its first English Channel crossing – from Dover to Calais – in a little over two hours. 1965: Ex-boxer and nightclub owner Freddie Mills was found shot dead in his car in Soho. 1978: The first test-tube baby was born in Oldham General Hospital. It was a girl, and she was named Louise Joy Brown. 1989: Just 3.6 miles short of Dover, woman pilot Gloria Pullan had to ditch Louis Bleriot’s historic plane in the Channel while attempting to recreate his crossing in 1909. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Thousands of BHS staff were told they faced redundancy as administrators geared up to close its 114 stores.