AT long last, with high profile "mobile speed traps" on Bolton Road, Radcliffe (Bury Times, June 25) the community can start looking forward to a safer and healthier environment.

This is a big step towards making driving at excessive and inappropriate speed, the unacceptable and anti-social practice that it is.

Despite these speed traps, however, there is still some way to go before the community can feel truly safe and secure. For if ACPO guidelines are anything to go by, 36mph on this stretch of road will be an acceptable speed.

The people who set the guidelines ought to try cycling-- or walking along the edge of the footpath, as some parents have to do while they keep their children away from speeding traffic. Furthermore, to fully appreciate the impact of speed, they should try it on a busy, narrow main road like Bolton Road, on a wet and windy morning, with a double-decker bus, or an articulated wagon speeding past.

That extra six miles an hour might not seem a lot inside a 40-ton juggernaut, but when it brushes past your shoulder with only inches to spare it's fast and it's frightening.

ALLAN RAMSAY