I FEEL that I must reply to the Rev David Kennedy's letter (LET, January 16) and take issue with the statement that law breakers are arrogant.

I have been driving for nearly 40 years and up to quite recently have held a LGV (class 1) licence. At present I hold a clean licence for PCVs (class 1) an advanced motorcycle certificate and was a police advanced driving instructor. I am employed as an approved driving instructor.

Twenty years of that service was spent within a traffic division in this area during which time I attended countless road traffic accidents. Although I use the term accident, almost without exception, the cause was driver error.

May I suggest that the writer is labouring under the false premise propagated by the so-called Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety and that is that speed kills.

If this was the case, then all police officers undergoing advanced training would be dead and this is clearly not happening.

Inappropriate speed kills, this is where driver error comes in, a and we should be working towards finding a way of perhaps some form of retesting on a regular basis for all drivers.

To return to the issue of cameras, the simple fact is that they don't work apart from the short distance where they are sited.

We are now criminalising the general law abiders and the real criminals are away scot-free.

The partnership assured everyone that cameras were only sited in areas where serious or fatal accidents justified them. This was patently untrue, yet despite this they resolutely refuse to admit they were at fault.

This government is anti-car and even over recent months legislation has been drafted which are all aimed at the motorist. I feel that we are seen as a way of raising additional revenue.

As to Rev Kennedy's assertion that we have the worst record in Europe for the killing of children on the road, I would question his source , as we have one of the lowest accident rates in Europe which never ceases to amaze me, considering the standard of driving I witness daily.

I also wonder whether the lack of road safety training in schools had anything to do with the accident rate amongst children.

In conclusion, I think I should explain that I am of the opinion that we have tried the Australian experiment of zero tolerance and it is not working and we should now adopt the Canadian system where all the cameras were scrapped and the accident rates went down and stayed down. Our answer lies in more education, an efficient traffic department that will use unmarked cars and target the huge numbers of disqualified and uninsured drivers as well as the professional speeders and traffic light jumpers.

PAUL DIXON, Branch Road, Mellor Brook.