SIR - "If speeding is so dangerous why don't governments make it illegal to manufacture motor vehicles capable of doing these speeds" asks your correspondent Ken Lorne.

The Department of Transport answers that "trade would be affected" and cites Germany (alone) as having no speed limits on its autobahns despite a "recommended" speed limit of 130k/81mph.

Thus our safety is compromised for a few stretches of European tarmac and the financial interests of the motor industry.

Christopher Macgowan, of the Society of Motor Manufacturers, excuses excess speed capacity, saying: "The appeal of a new car lies in its ability to be tested off-road. They can drive at speed under the supervision of experts at track days."

In Southwark, sentencing Ivan Mazour who killed a friend in a "mad" urban high-speed car crash, Judge Anthony Pitts said: "I have heard in statements that you never drive slowly and that you had taken your Mitsubishi car to race tracks. And if I may say so, that was its natural habitat."

This is an "extreme sport," must we all pay for it - both financially for speed capability we cannot legally use and in tragic deaths caused by speed-obsessed drivers?

Barbara Davy, Parklands, Ilkley