What a well-balanced, well- reasoned article by Andrew Hitchon (Time to speak out on 20mph zones, March 19).

He is quite right, of course, that there is no evidence to suggest that a city-wide 20mph blanket limit would do otherwise than slow everything down and that it is a few hardened campaigners and councillors who are hell-bent on pushing this through.

Quite right, we should make our voices known on this, but what I am afraid of is that if the council start putting out questionnaires and surveys to monitor public opinion, they will skew the results by spurious use of the questions, as has been evidenced so many times before.

For example, the question could be written “are you in favour of a 20mph zone to save lives?”. Obviously, no-one wants to see lives lost so the reaction is to answer “Yes” and the 20mph zone is pushed through. If there is to be a survey, as Andrew suggests, let it be a plain simple “Do you want a blanket 20mph limit in your area?”.

Bob Redwood, Main Street, Askham Bryan, York.