Speeders beware

SIR – Hampshire police may well allow drivers to be 10 per cent over the speed limit before they prosecute (Letters, May 4), but many forces no longer do.

On a speed awareness course, we were told that vehicles’ speedometers, safety cameras and radar traps are today far more accurate than they used to be.

I was caught driving at 54 mph in the 50mph “average speed camera” stretch of the Queen Elizabeth bridge over the Thames, while a fellow course attendee was prosecuted for 32mph in a 30mph urban area. You have been warned.

Roger Stainton Buntingford, Hertfordshire

SIR – While I welcome the recent increase in speeding fines, could I add a little perspective?

The latest government figures (for 2015) show that, of 1,732 deaths on British roads, 244 were related to speeding. That is 14 per cent.

A little more effort should go into finding the reasons for the deaths that are not related to speeding, instead of taking the easy option of concentrating on the speeding minority.

Thankfully British roads are getting safer year on year. In 2015 there were 2 per cent fewer deaths and 3 per cent fewer serious injuries than in 2014. Every single road fatality is an absolute tragedy. Let us hope the figures keep going down.

John Deards Warminster, Wiltshire

SIR – Going through old boxes of my grandad’s 78s, I came across an edition of The Daily Herald from 1956, with this item attached.

“Summoned in Sheffield yesterday for driving a car between 45 and 52 mph, Charles Francis Beck, of Adlard Road, Doncaster, wrote to the court that he was on his way home from a concert and ‘was spiritually intoxicated by the magic of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony’. He added, ‘I am cutting down my concertgoing in future to try to ensure that it does not happen again.’ He was fined 50 shillings.”

I’m not sure what’s more shocking: being intoxicated by Tchaikovsky’s Fifth or speeding between 45 and 52 mph.

Michael Castle Stonehouse, Gloucestershire