I THANK Ian Bell, Project Manager of the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety, for his 'non-reply' (Letters, August 30) to my earlier query on how the figure of £1million per road death was calculated.

Interesting as it might be, it did not answer the basic question of the cost of a fatality, but what it did show is that the Department of Guesswork comes up with a figure, passes it on to the Highways Department, which then passes it on to the public as fact.

Also, the line on "the fatality's own intrinsic loss of enjoyment of life" is an insult to anyone who has lost someone in a road traffic accident, as I have.

Does Mr Bell think people go out of their way to be killed on the road? If my mother thought it cost the Government £1million following her accident she would be turning in her grave at the trouble she caused.

S ASHWORTH, St Mary's Wharf, Blackburn.