WHEN will those who complain about the floods and the traffic chaos making them late realise they are the problem?

They are part of the traffic; they are emitting greenhouse gases that eventually cause things such as floods.

I passed cars queueing from Nestl Rowntree's into the city centre, nearly all with only one person inside. All would have fitted comfortably into six buses.

If people insist in this motoring madness could they please keep more to the right and allow clean, quick cyclists to get to work on time without being run into the kerbs?

Andrew Tessier,

Rose Street, York.

...REGARDING the constant, but particularly topical, subject of traffic chaos in York, I have always thought a roundabout with traffic lights at the Castle Mills end of Piccadilly, and the reinstatement of the roundabout near the entrance to St George's Field, would go a long way to easing the appalling congestion in Fishergate etc.

The logic of this loop and the one which forces traffic down Nunnery Lane and then into Prices Lane (recently highlighted as having one of the highest pollution levels in the city), to get back on to Bishopgate Street and Skeldergate Bridge, escapes me.

Many years ago lovely houses were knocked down on Bishopgate Street because of the Esher report. They were replaced with a patch of grass.

This area could be widened for traffic to travel straight down Bishopthorpe Road, Bishopgate Street and Skeldergate Bridge.

It would probably require another roundabout to control the right-turn to Nunnery Lane from the direction of town, but then we all know how much our council loves building things either sticking out, up, or into the road!

We know car-driving residents are highly undesirable to them, but can the day have actually dawned when they are finally realising that the crazy hotchpotch they call a traffic system is putting off visitors and affecting the prosperity of the city?

Jill Burnett,

Windmill Rise, York.

...I suggest that the Highways Agency, in deference to our local heritage and their ability to hold up the city's population without warning, should be renamed the Highwaymen Agency. Their motto could be: "Stand and don't deliver".

Steve Smowton,

Wenlock Drive,

Escrick, York.

...HOW ironic that amid all the traffic chaos in and around York, the only thing to arrive on time is the reminder from the DVLA that one's road tax is due.

John Teasdale,

Tilmire Close,

Fulford, York.

Updated: 10:42 Thursday, November 01, 2001