SIR: I take exception at your article making owners of older vehicles and their cars scapegoats.

Firstly, as you seem oblivious to the facts. Part of the MOT Test is the rigorous emissions test, which, if the vehicle fails to meet Government standards on this point, will not be granted a test certificate.

Secondly, as your article shows, only 25 per cent of vehicles on the roads come into this category and, even if we accept your highly prejudicial generalisation that older cars cause four times the pollution of new ones per vehicle (certainly not the case with a car with recent MOT Certificate), there is little evidence to prove that these contribute disproportionately to the overall atmospheric pollution in total. Mainly because older vehicles are less likely to be used as much as new, many only being in occasional use or part time.

With the US being far and away the biggest car owning economy, and Britain actually one of the lowest in Europe per capita, France and Germany for example being higher, it is nothing more than a conceit to think that this country must lead the rest of the world on this point.

It is also curious that Cornwall and Devon, two counties you point out as having high proportions of older cars, have noticeably clean and fresh atmospheres, more so than most of the North-west, which would seem to defy your argument.

S Green, Bolton.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.