WITH so many people having done so much for so long to improve road safety in the borough, it comes as a huge upset for us to see a local driver, four-and-a-half times over the limit, escape prosecution.

It is surely an outcome that demands radical changes to the law and the rules of the road.

This man could so easily have destroyed his own life, his family's, and also the lives of many other innocent families.

Imagine a group of young people, having had a few too many, walking home - daft maybe but law-abiding - like so many will this Christmas, and the outcome could have been carnage. Will this man do it again?

The lawyer, Nick 'Mr Loophole' Freeman, who successfully defended him says the police simply are not doing their job, but in any profession there are both capable and elite practitioners, even the best make mistakes.

Law breaking drivers should be seen as potentially life-threatening viruses, and we desperately need a vaccine.

Whenever the police get tough on these drivers, they are always quick to say, leave us alone, go and catch real criminals. So-called real criminals don't cause anywhere near as much damage, carnage and congestion.

Nick Freeman's practice of exploiting loopholes where, if the police don't follow procedures to the letter, amounts to zero tolerance.

Furthermore, it is a practice that seems to have become common place, with many others fighting for drivers' rights.

One campaigner has won the case for many who have been fined for parking illegally, simply on the strength of one wrong word - 'driver' instead of 'owner' - on their parking ticket. Then others have won the case for many speeders because signs didn't conform to the letter of the law - wrong format, wrong place, wrong size. No system can be fair, just, safe and efficient if we have such an imbalance with one rule for one and a different rule for others, especially when it so much favours the privileged above the under-privileged.

We must either have zero tolerance applied to both courts of law and the rules of the road, or common sense and flexibility for both.

If a driver is allowed a 10 per cent margin of error for speeding (often more), and is allowed to drink within reason - as he/she is - then the same should apply to the police and the courts in enforcing the law.

It is about saving lives after all, and the right to a person's freedom to travel in absolute safety, however they see fit, should over-ride the right to a person wanting to drive a huge lump of metal as they please.

MEMBERS OF ROADPEACE

AND BRAKE