WHERE would we be without motorways —total gridlock, half empty supermarkets?

Walking/cycling is this the only sure way of getting to school/work on time? Isn’t gridlock on the roads a daily occurrence? Must we wait for computer controlled cars before it ends?

How many drivers know and appreciate what’s required to keep them flowing? “None”, it was said. The BBC 2 programme, ‘The Motorway: Life In The Fast Lane’ (9pm, September 30) showed it all — learner drivers, crashes, barrier/surface repairs, protecting nesting birds and great crested newts, police patrols, inspecting HGV’s, CCTV monitoring and more. It’s a 24/7, 365 days a year operation.

For some – with drivers not paying attention — it’s a very risky job: eight workers have been killed in the last five years, with 135 injured. One worker referred to the M6 as the “Mad 6” and ‘jokingly’ told how he’d put everything in place — “insurance, funeral, pension” — in order for his partner’s ‘peace of mind’.

With 250,000 road traffic collisions every year, it was said: “We call them collisions rather than accidents; there’s no such thing; there’s always someone to blame.”

The progamme concluded with a woman whose husband — driving at 60mph in the middle lane — had been killed when a mobile-crane crossed over from the opposite carriageway.

An HGV driver, found to have been driving for 21 hours out of 29, was to blame. With her three children, one of who was only months old at the time, she said: “They never knew their father and never will. I hate the word accident. I’ve never hated a word so much. I’d like people to understand that being responsible isn’t a trivial thing; obeying the rules of the road, doing what you’re supposed to do, is all I want.” She surely speaks for all (innocent) crash victims.

It should be made compulsory viewing for all drivers; part of the driving test! Also, with BBC radio and local TV, habitually using the word ‘accident’ as the cause of every traffic delay they report, might they now (at the third time of asking) consider using ‘incident’ Allan Ramsay Radcliffe Moor Road Radcliffe