Letters to the Editor

SIR - I totally agree with Derek Hobson's letter 'Time to get tough' (T&A, April 10) with regard to the derisory 'penalties' handed down to vehicle insurance dodgers. It is time to get tough, but why not get even tougher?

Where such offenders are also found to be without a licence to drive the car, have no MoT certificate for the vehicle, no road fund licence or are currently disqualified from driving, I would suggest that the car is seized, taken to the nearest processing plant and crushed into a neat, compact block!

Based on the many instances of such listed offences in the T&A's Court File just think what the resultant benefits could be over a period of a few months.

Apart from the (possible) deterrent factor, roads would be less crowded and far safer for legal road users to negotiate. Pedestrians would be much safer too. There would be the prospect of better parking, chances of realistic insurance premiums for the law-abiding driver, all of which, in turn, should ease the demand on over-stretched police resources.

Also it would make a contribution to environmental friendliness together with a tremendous boost to any local recycling target.

Keith Sivyer, Dalecroft Rise, Allerton

Call this progress?

SIR - Drivers are disqualified by a court for a reason. If they then drive while disqualified they are deliberately breaching a court order. Magistrates have the power to send them to prison. Why don't they do it?

A very few years ago, people were jailed for the first offence of driving while disqualified. Then it was only for the second offence, and since then we have "progressed" to the point where a person can be convicted five times or more for this offence without being sent down. No wonder they keep on doing it.

Disqualified drivers cannot possibly have insurance. Maybe the magistrates and their masters have never had a car wrecked by an uninsured driver. I have, and it was costly.

L Hobsbaum, Willow Crescent, Bradford

God's strength

SIR - As a Biblically-based Christian, I am sick and tired of people purporting to proclaim the will of God, when all they are doing is misquoting his word to bolster their own prejudices.

Remember the commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."

Please, brothers and sisters, get real.

It is good that you are moved to protest, but find yourself more serious causes than Jerry Springer: The Opera, a small work, for which the authors will have to answer on the Day of Judgement.

I happen to believe it asks relevant questions about the way our world is sending itself to hell, but even if you do not agree, are you so upset because it does not subscribe to your image of a blue-eyed, wimpish Messiah, rather than the angry Godhead who drove the money-changers out of the temple with a whip of knotted cords?

Is your vision of God so weak that He cannot withstand a bit of satire, that he needs constant flattery?

Jeremiah says: "He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord."

Karl Dallas, Church Green, Bradford

Menwith's value

SIR - I hope that as Sylvia Boyes (T&A, April 6) struts her stuff before the TV cameras, she finds time to reflect on the tapes of the heartbreaking last calls sent by workers trapped in the World Trade Centre on 9/11.

She might also realise that recent images of dishevelled young women tumbling from Cuddles Massage Parlour in Birmingham were the tip of a massive iceberg of organised crime.

In both incidents lives were ended or ruined and families destroyed because British and American intelligence services were unable to find evidence to lead them to those responsible before and not after their outrages.

By persisting with her futile campaign against Menwith Hill, Mrs Boyes seems intent on removing (along with GCHQ) the nerve centres of the world's most sophisticated electronic surveillance system which is our best and only hope of disrupting future acts of terror, drug smuggling and people trafficking.

With the threat of nuclear war, which was the motivation for people like Mrs Boyes, long gone, I am left with the conclusion that her endless attempts to achieve political martyrdom are driven by nothing more noble than hatred of all things American.

Brian Holmans, Langley Road, Bingley

Smokers' rights

SIR - Thinking about the recent murder of the hospital worker who was killed while taking a "smoke break" at work, how can the hospital bosses sleep in peace?

It is absolutely vital that smokers should be able to indulge in their "vice" in safety while at work and a safe place should be provided for them.

Had this hospital had such a place then the lady in question would undoubtedly be still alive.

Never mind that smoking is bad for you (I gave up 30 years ago), smokers, as far as I can see, still have rights and this includes the right to have a quiet puff in peace.

Phil Boase, Elizabeth Street, Wyke

Drug test benefit

SIR - I was interested in your comments and those from a small minority of drug charities (two) concerning parents' rights' to test their children for Drugs using a home drug test (T&A, April 10). What evidence is there of the potential harm to relationships of parents testing their kids for drugs as opposed to the harm of not knowing?

Over the many years we have been involved in this area we have found no evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, the majority of young people and addicts we surveyed were happy to be tested to prove their abstinence.

Many carers managing drug users at home welcomed the opportunity to get involved in helping to monitor use by home testing.

The Government has recommended drug testing in schools and their own advisory body, the Advisory Council of the Misuse of Drugs, stated that "parental monitoring could discourage children from using drugs and therefore help in reducing levels of consumption."

Drug tests have been widely available on the internet for many years.

The home drug test is ethically provided with relevant information and advice from responsible pharmacists with links to services. It should be supported for helping to tackle this very serious social problem.

Les Vasey, managing director, Modern Health Systems, Shipley Business Centre, Kirkgate, Shipley

A tongue twister

SIR - I feel that student James Davidson's comments on two "appalling" mistakes (Feedback, April 10) are a bit over the top. Not everyone has had six years studying German, and after all it was only a cartoon.

I am no German student but I understand that "paper" is neuter "das" but newspaper is feminine "die" and a good job it was not in the dative "dem"! In French both are masculine.

I shudder to think how students of our own language would go on if they had all the genders and cases to contend with. Even the dative is not used by many.

I wonder if James will be writing to you about the "appalling" mistake with the same day's cartoon? A conditional requires the subjunctive after an "if". Thus "if the blackboard were (not was) lower down". I doubt he will comment because after all it is only English where anything goes these days.

Philip E Bird, Nab Wood Terrace, Shipley

Council ostriches

SIR - The report on April 7, "Hundreds back canal proposal", made me think how many hundreds exactly?

I'll bet there are thousands who would rather see £35 million spent on education and building of new prisons and community centres.

When will the ostriches in the Council get out and listen to the people who pay their wages and for goodness sake stop trying to tell us everything in Bradford is going to be fine and dandy once we have a canal and a lake?

Jenny Sampson (prospective BNP candidate for Shipley), Rossmore Drive, Allerton