FOLLOWING the remarks of County Councillor Richard Toon, chairman of Lancashire's highways and transportation committee about traffic-calming (Letters, July 2), as the vice-president of the Lancashire Automobile Club and a manufacturer of motor cars, I would invite a reply to some questions about Lancashire roads.

On the slip road leaving the M66 heading for Blackburn and the M65, there are many accidents where vehicles run wide and hit lamp posts on the outside of the bend. Could he please tell me who is going to take the responsibility when a vehicle misses one of these lamp posts, crosses the central reservation and kills a family in a car coming in the opposite direction?

One cannot help wondering which trainee engineer designed the blind brow at the top of the slip road on the new Junction 29 of the M6 leading to the M61/65. So soon after its opening, it seems necessary to have vast luminous marker boards.

Has he tried driving a large, heavy vehicle around the differing cambers on that new piece of road around the sunken roundabout to join the M65 where traffic lanes disappear?

Which other county in the UK builds traffic-calming islands out in to a main road and the puts a bus stop on the apex? Currently, when a bus stops, it does not pull in, it stops in the middle of the road, and brings traffic to a halt in both directions. Most normal planners build a lay-by for this reason.

I would be more than happy to drive Mr Toon to these death traps and point out how the modern motor vehicle and drivers react.

ANTHONY TAYLOR, Oakenshaw, Clayton-le-Moors.

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