IAN Bell, of the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety (Letters, August 30) compared the road death toll on Lancashire roads between this year and the last.

With nine fewer deaths this year it could well be that the country's roads are a little safer and lives are being saved.

However, how do we measure lives saved? This is the rub when it comes to road safety. According to the Lancashire Partnership, saving lives means improving road safety with 20mph zones, road humps, traffic-calming schemes and red light and speed cameras.

The road death toll may well have been reduced by nine, but in comparison the rate for the same period for Lincolnshire, where road safety schemes have also been implemented, the number of deaths has increased by 20.

Over the last 10 years the issue of road safety has become high on the agenda in our modern risk-aversive society, but has the interest in improving road safety had any significant effect on actually it?

Therefore, define road safety. Is it about reducing the fear of danger felt by road users or is it actually about seriously reducing road casualty and death rates?

Over the past five years there has been an explosion of road safety schemes and, in the main, the casualty rate has been declining. But it is not as low as it was in 1991 and the overall road-death toll has remained static at around 3,500 deaths a year -- the lowest rate in Europe.

In my opinion, the effectiveness of current safety schemes can be judged by how the casualty and death rates are reduced. Given that schemes have been in place for a significant period, then maybe a change in the approach is what is needed.

Also, given that the greater proportion of accidents in which people die are not caused through speed, then would it not be sensible to place greater emphasis on general standards of skill as well, as driving courtesy, in order to lower figures.

Any competent driver will recognise that there is a lack of basic driving skill on our roads, not just in terms of bad driving but a lack of ability to observe, react and manage a vehicle appropriately and competently.

I would suggest that the abundance of road management devices that drivers are confronted with today represents merely a message and is not a serious attempt to modify driver behaviour.

To truly reduce death and casualty rates what are needed are less draconian methods that attempt to improve road safety as well as improved methods of driver training so that learners are taught to drive and not just taught to pass a series of tests -- therefore effectively preventing problems without the need to cure them.

IAN TALBOT, Limefield Road, Radcliffe, Manchester.