Reader Letters: "Polite notice" bikers, claims culture and motorway contraflows
Your correspondence
Vested interest
Surely motorcycle safety vests with the word “Polite” on the back and the chequered pattern beneath should be banned as being imitative of the genuine police motorcycle uniform.
Mike Pinker, Barnet, north London
The compensation game
Honor Bowker writes about the ridiculous closure of motorways (“Safety catch”, Letters, September 25). I was in an incident where an intoxicated person who tried to cross the M6 on foot was hit by my car and died. The motorway was closed for hours and I was interviewed on suspicion of causing death by careless driving. It took three months, even after tests found no alcohol in my system and that I had been travelling at 70mph or less, for the case to be dropped.
The police are forced to do this — if they don’t, the family of the deceased could take legal action. This is why motorways get closed: because of our claims culture. Every one of the eight traffic officers who attended the scene knew immediately what had happened. Yet for three months the costs to me and the state continued to mount.
Name and address supplied
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Without reservation
Why not open part of the central reservation rather than just close half a motorway? Under police supervision, cars could join the opposite carriageway, clearing the backlog.
Peter Gray, Plymouth
