WHAT an interesting argument Liz Edge posed as she opposed speed humps in the city (March 31) including:

Cars have to stop for cycle tracks

She monitored York's buses during a six-month period

Her views on the usefulness of speed humps

Unless I am mistaken, if a car is travelling out of a side road it must wait for oncoming traffic to pass before it can pull out, therefore a cyclist heading along a main road has the right of way.

Or does Liz think they should stop and let the cars out, so they will "limit the pollution" caused by the car idling while it passes?

As for the study of buses during the last six months, Liz, try getting a bus before 9am or after 4.30pm. I think you will find most are full to overflowing.

If First only had 15 people travelling on its buses, then it would go out of business before the year is out.

So why remove the speed humps? They are a deterrent to speed and are not designed to stop the flow of traffic.

I applaud the use of humps and whatever else the council comes up with to reduce the speed of some of the cars I have seen travelling past schools.

It has been proved, time and time again, that speed-reduction schemes save lives.

The reason for the congestion on York roads is because of the volume of cars, not the fact that the council or Government introduced speed-calming measures.

Cheynne Hempshall

Kingsway West,

Acomb, York.

...AFTER eight years of silence on the subject, former councillor Liz Edge comes out against traffic calming.

There's just one thing she got right in her anti-safety rant: "Keep the traffic moving".

Of course, but not at the expense of adults and children killed or injured because most of us drive too fast.

And not at the expense of the staff of York Hospital's accident and emergency department, nor the expense of cyclists using cycle tracks, ludicrously blamed by Liz for city traffic virtually grinding to a halt.

Because of traffic-calming measures at many of our schools and on a number of our roads, the risk of accidents in York is being minimised.

Neither humps nor chicanes are comfortable but, at the right low speed, they serve their purpose of providing greater safety for all of us.

As for the grotesque claim that traffic calming leads to "the very large number of deaths caused by delays in ambulances getting to hospitals," could we have one shred of evidence from Mrs Edge to set against the reality of significant cuts in the number of accidents?

Let's keep the traffic moving - safely.

Peter Vaughan,

The Old Village,

Huntington, York.

...I NOTE with interest and a bad back that our city engineers have been strategically creating road humps partly based on request.

Is there a possibility that the same level of democracy will be afforded to a request to remove them?

Rich Rafton,

Galtres Avenue,

Stockton Lane, York.

Updated: 11:15 Monday, April 05, 2004