Readers' Letters: Police and drivers must work together to reduce road deaths

As a former head of Road Policing for Scotland, I welcome Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop acknowledging the horrendous increase in road deaths and injuries. Improvements in road safety are most successful when everyone pulls together with the foundations of Engineering, Education, Encouragement and Enforcement.

Engineering advances in motor vehicles have likely saved more lives than any other factor, bolstered by good road layouts, pedestrian crossing points et cetera. Poor maintenance, obscured or dirty signs, worn or obliterated markings, so important on B and C class roads, indicate better investment in maintenance is needed by the roads authorities on those roads with higher incidences of collisions. And drivers cocooned in their warm, highly engineered vehicles cannot become complacent to changes in road conditions and must adapt their driving style accordingly – ABS, stability controls and airbags can only do so much. The morning commute in heavy rain should not be seen as a whitewater rafting challenge.

Police Scotland made difficult choices. We lost the roads safety officers who had been deployed successfully for many years and despite the excellent materials and support from Road Safety Scotland, a trailblazer in advocating good practices. Road safety education now sits firmly with the local authorities as it has done since 1982. Police officers deliver some educational/encouragement advice at the roadside and events such as the Rider Refinement project and car cruise meets. The education/encouragement strands are also evident in the many themed campaigns, Lose the Blinkers, Drink/Drug Driving, Seatbelts, Speeding etc. that run through the year to raise the public’s awareness.

Police Scotland do what they can but road death figures will shrink only if all drivers take more care, says reader (Picture: Robert Perry/Getty Images)

As for Enforcement, I can safely say that working in “the Traffic” (I still do as a special) has led to all sorts of expert opinions, complaints and outrage being offered to me at public meetings and social gatherings. Everyone wants to see more police on the roads tackling offenders and catching criminals, but please let me off with a warning if I’m caught! And why do you close roads for so long after an “accident”?!

To deliver enforcement a 5th E (Establishment) is needed. Sadly, the numbers of Road Policing officers have declined, from around 600 constables in 2014 to 500 in 2019 when I was in charge, to fewer still now. This much has been reported in the media. The Service has made numerous difficult choices on policing priorities since 2013 and Road Policing has been a donor division for many years to bolster Armed Policing, Contact Command and Control, and Custody Divisions, to name but a few.

Speed limits may be lowered (and Mark Ruskell MSP might be looking on with a wry smile, having campaigned in 2018 for a default to 20mph on all restricted roads), but without sufficient police officers, Community, Response, Road Policing and others, to enforce road traffic laws the public will continue to witness dreadful driving, with the concomitant carnage and grief that fatal and serious collisions leave behind.

Please go safe, it’s everyone’s responsibility.

Stewart Carle, Stirling

What’s in a name?

Andrew HN Gray's reductio ad absurdum about Scottish place names fails (Letters, 3 October). I was in NE Italy this year and the place names were in Italian and Slovenian. In SW France place names are in French and Occitan. In Spain in the Basque country place names are in Castilian and Basque, and in Galicia they are in Castilian and Gallego.

Are people who are against bilingual place names ashamed of their history and culture? Place names are linguistic fossils which remind us of who we are. A land without a language is a land without a soul.

Colin McAllister, St Andrews, Fife

Tongues tied?

I was told as a child to watch out for sharn on the pavement, and that if one was carrying a heavy powk it had to be done properly to prevent your rigg warking. This advice was given to me in North Lancashire, where I was brought up, a cultural background that probably impedes my ability to comment linguistically on Scots as a language different from English, like Welsh or Gaelic.

This was demonstrated when as a member of the Broadcasting Council for Scotland, I proposed that the BBC transmit more programmes in Scots, but was told by management that it was complicated; arguments about airtime between speakers of Lallans or Doric would seriously impede its implementation.

Ni Holmes (Letters, 9 October) mentions the UN Declaration of the Rights of Minorities, which ordains the protection of the linguistic identities of minorities. Should Lallans, Doric, Orcadian etc, get as much protection and financial support as Gaelic?

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Immigrants all

I write to applaud the editorial (9 October) accentuating the positives of immigration, rather than the all too common negatives. As an aged member of Scotland's aging population, I well remember the mass emigration of Scots to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. Anyone who visits America will be struck by the sheer volume of those who claim Scottish ancestry. Scots are among the most populous emigrants in the world.

Sadly, immigration has become something of a political football, not least among the Tories and Reform, as to which is the more effective in “stopping the small boats”. Nigel Farage boasts about reducing immigration to net zero, and for far too many, this counts as a vote winner. The most famous Scottish emigres were those escaping the Highland Clearances, being transported across the Atlantic Ocean in small boats, a perilous journey with an unacceptable number of casualties, including children.

Immigration is a constant of human existence, often compelled, rarely voluntary. Every family tree contains in its ancestry, immigration, however distant in the past it may be. As the editorial stresses, we should welcome, as an asset, the injection of young life to our aging society, those who for whatever reason are compelled to make immigration part of their family story now.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Confused funding

It is surprising that, in discussing council tax reform (Editorial, 8 October), you don't mention land value tax (LVT), once advocated by the Green Party (they seem to have dropped it).

The funding of local services in Scotland is messy and confused. It mainly comes for four sources: Scottish Government grant; service income; non-domestic rates and Council Tax. Consequently, changes to the Council Tax are a minor matter when other sources do not change.

In other European countries, most levy a property tax, though some levy a local income tax in part or whole. The property tax is mainly LVT. I suppose councils need to have their own funding; otherwise they would just be departments of the Scottish Government. It would be neat if they could meet all their own costs without a government subsidy, but perhaps that would bear too heavily on residents. Perhaps the best option is a combination of LVT plus an income tax. Which party is brave enough to adopt that?

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

Bearing burden

I am astonished every time the disparity in income tax between Scotland and England is referred to as a monstrous outrage. While conceding that the numbers involved may seem large to lower earners (for whom the problem is largely non-existent), but to suggest that someone earning £50,000 a year is going to consider relocating because they have to pay an extra £1,542 in tax is ludicrous. Even the idea of a high earner on £200,000 a year leaving the country on the grounds of paying £7,478 extra is nonsense. On that salary rate, one will almost certainly have investments which cover the tax threshold anyway!

In addition, all the financial benefits of living in Scotland (of which there are many, something critics conveniently forget) reduce further the supposed shortfall.

The Policy Chairman at the City of London Corporation, Chris Hayward, is being disingenuous, crying wolf over this matter (your report, 9 October).

Brian Bannatyne-Scott, Edinburgh

Vouchsafed

There is a way to provide breakfast for primary pupils without the expense of hiring staff to prepare and supervise breakfast. Decades ago there were luncheon vouchers, which were cheap to provide and widely used. The Parliament could issue breakfast vouchers which could be spent on only milk, cereal and eggs.

Rosemary McDougall, Fala Village, Midlothian

Cold legend

Regarding the patch of snow on the Cairngorms which was in danger of melting, a rare event as it traditionally lasts all year (your report, 4 October), I hope the snow is not Ciste Mearad, Margaret's Coffin, associated with the legend of Curse of Moy, a gloomy tale.

A young man was condemned to death by the Chief of Clan Macintosh for sheep stealing. His sweetheart begged for mercy to no avail. She later lost her reason and wandered the hills until she met her death in a snowdrift in the corrie in the Cairngorms now bearing her name. Before she died she placed a curse on the Chiefs of Clan Macintosh, wishing the title would never pass from father to son should that patch of snow melt. It is to be hoped climate change is not catching up with old legends.

Sandy Macpherson, Edinburgh

Write to The Scotsman

We welcome your thoughts – NO letters submitted elsewhere, please. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won't print full details. Keep letters under 300 words, with no attachments, and avoid 'Letters to the Editor/Readers’ Letters' or similar in your subject line – be specific. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading.