THE families of people killed on the roads are sometimes told that if the vehicle had been travelling five mph slower their loved one's injuries would not have been fatal.

This is not helpful, either to the bereaved, who may have been left with a brain-damaged dependant, or to the driver, who may well have been dutifully observing the speed limit and deserves to feel no guilt.

It is equally true to say that if the car had been going one mph faster it would have been nowhere near the place where the pedestrian stepped into the road.

Why is there no 21st-century version of the Rule of the Road, the Tufty Club or the Green Cross Code? Are school children no longer advised by police officers about how to cross the road safely?

KEITH ELLEL, Westwood Avenue, Rishton.