THE road humps row on the moor road through Burley Woodhead shows no signs of abating if the response on our letters page is anything to go by.

One thing is certain. The issue will be on the agenda for the forthcoming months as various roadworks on the A65 force more exasperated motorists to search for an alternative route.

Work to shore up the collapsing railway embankment on the line between Burley and Ilkley is due to take five months and will result in traffic jams. Further up the road, the installation of traffic lights at the junction of Wheatley Lane and Coutances Way will result in another snarl-up.

After serious and protracted consultation, traffic engineers came up with idea of 'platooning' traffic through Ilkley by the installation of traffic lights at the strategic junctions of Victoria Avenue and Wheatley Lane.

Quite apart from the absurd and unjustified manipulation of the English language to come up with the spurious verb 'to platoon', the whole idea could be interpreted as an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records by creating the longest traffic jam in the history of motoring. Fed up with sitting in traffic jams on the A65, more and more motorists are bound to chance their arm (and shock absorbers) on the nightmare bounce through Burley Woodhead.

The whole fiasco could have been foreseen and anticipated years ago but instead we let opponents of the proposed Ilkley bypass convince us that the region could function efficiently in the 21st century with a 1950s road system.

So as we make up our minds whether to pogo stick through the leafy lanes repeatedly banging our heads on the car roof or sit for hours getting slowly poisoned by carbon monoxide on the A65 car park, at least we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that we played our full part in preventing progress from rearing its ugly head in Ilkley.