Why do a few believe their journeys are more important than the lives and families of drivers who are correctly "reading the road"?

It amazes me that they will overtake numerous cars at once and endanger others.

I can personally vouch that Mr Judd (Viewpoint, August 9) is correct in that time does go slowly in hospital, but it goes even slower when you leave and you're off work and disabled for life.

Please Northamptonshire County Council, don't spend millions on road upgrades to reward the angry drivers but spend it on hospitals and welfare for crash victims.

I felt safer in war zones!
Flt Lt Phil Andrews BEM RAF (Ret'd)
Chariot Road,
Wootton Fields,
Northampton.

None on A43
With reference to your story Speed cameras raised £2.5 million in one year (August 7), the partnership spokeswoman Kate Barrett stated that "an average of 68 people killed or seriously injured at the sites where we now have fixed speed cameras".

Can she state exactly how many people have been killed, for example, at the Netto site, Fox and Hounds, Harlestone, Southfields or Barrack Road just for starters and then say why there has never been a speed camera fixed or the camera van visiting on a regular basis the most dangerous road in the country, the A43 between Kettering and Northampton.

Maybe they just won't make enough money out of this site as the other pointless examples.
Martin Blunt,
Julian Way,
Kingsthorpe,
Northampton.

Money makers
Speed cameras are indeed nothing but a money making exercise. If this were not the case, why have they never been installed along the red route A43 Northampton to Kettering?

The income from these cameras clearly indicates that an additional 80 to 90 full-time police officers could be employed as a far better alternative.

Police officers can carry out far more duties than an intangible object as a speed camera. They can educate offenders, catch thieves and much more besides.
W S Dean,
Cameron Close, Duston, Northampton.

Injuries reduced
The recent coverage and letters about speed camera income has not made several issues clear. The income figures are for gross income and include income from fixed penalty notices issued by the police.

Also the recent figures announced show a reduction of some 1,700 in the number killed or seriously injured where there are speed cameras.

As it is the Tories who have raised this issue about income from speed cameras, can Brian Binley or some other Tory tell us by how much they intend to reduce the speeding fines and which speed cameras in Northampton do they intend to remove.

This is the clear implication of what they are saying.
Geoff Howes,
Alliston Gardens, Northampton.

Take a firm hand with these thugs
What an horrific sight to see the battered face on the front of the Chron . . . yet another example of the work of the mindless thugs roaming the streets of Britain.

How sad for Mr Brown and co not to realise what a grip of violence and thuggery this once proud country is in. And we have David Cameron who wants us to hug these thugs. What will the Lib Dems want us to do . . . pay the thugs who attack us compensation?

We need a firm hand to take thugs off the streets. If they catch this thug, he should be given six months hard labour and then six months litter-picking and then the birch.

Let's fight fire with fire and let's get tough and show the hoodies and the drunken gangs that if they play with fire they will get burned.

We need action now. Consecutive governments promise but, never deliver.

If the rest of England can't act, let Northampton be the first. Let's make our town a safe, friendly environment to live and work in.
P M Folwell,
Brown Close, Duston, Northampton.

New job-creating scheme needed
With unemployment on the rise, resulting in strenuous competition for every conceivable avenue of employment, naturally even the most diligent job seeker can experience a lengthy spell of dispiriting joblessness.

I can recollect and indeed participated in the Community Programme of the 1980s, a worthwhile venture, utilising the long-term unemployed on year-long contracts, carrying out dignified tasks, environmental improvements, maintaining elderly people's gardens, clearing overgrown pathways, repairing church walls and also community centre help.

The rate for the job was earned, coupled with encouragement and help in gaining an eventual permanent post.

An invaluable work reference was gained and most crucially they restored and reinvigorated an individual's get up and go.

Ironically, whether intentionally or inadvertently, this scheme was innovated by the Conservative Government of the day with its doctrine of individualism.

The project appeared similar to the imaginative, laudable New Deal Programme under the iconic US Democratic President Roosevelt (FDR) for example, the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) helping unemployed people working on conservation schemes, diversifying to assist unemployed writers and actors.

Idealistic? Maybe, but a project surely worth revisiting during precarious economic times.
W Kelly,
St Giles Street, Northampton.

Parking disbelief
I read with disbelief the decision of West Northampton Development Corporation (WNDC) to allow another large restaurant in Kettering Road, Northampton, without any additional parking.

When this proposal was first mooted, the owner was quoted as saying there was plenty of ground at the back to provide parking (article in the Chronicle & Echo). Instead there is a planning application for two studio flats with garages.

How dare the owner expect to use our streets for his customers!
Does he really expect us to believe that his customers will use St Michael's Road car park?

Make him demolish the existing buildings he owns at the back of the restaurant building and supply his own car park.
S Justice,
Henry Street,
Northampton.