IT was hardly surprising that the death rate on East Lancashire's rural roads is a cause for concern (LET, November 23), but as locks are only proof against honest people, so are lower speed limits only proof against people who drive at a reasonable speed anyway.

Perhaps the greatest increased danger to rural road users in recent years is lack of visibility caused by untrimmed hedges and overgrowing trees.

In many cases, warning signs are almost totally obscured by foliage and sight lines obscured by uncut grass, making roads once relatively safe at 50mph potentially dangerous at only 30mph and on some of the narrower overgrown lanes, the safe speed may be only 20mph.

Imposing a blanket 40mph speed limit on rural roads, as some environmental groups suggest, is unlikely to provide safety dividends and perhaps environmental lobbyists have, in part, caused the prolem by encouraging local authorities and farmers not to trim roadside hedges and trees. There is an increasing tendency for drivers to swerve in order to avoid rabbits and pheasants, despite vehicles coming in the opposite direction. Even if there is no oncoming traffic, swerving to avoid a small animal may cause an accident.

Having driven thousands of miles on rural roads, I find that, in most cases, if you continue on your original path, you are very likely to miss a small animal, but those who foolishly swerve may hit them anyway.

If you are in a rush, it is advisable to keep off unfamiliar roads, but perhaps the recently-published and very informative Ordnance Survey Lancashire Street Atlas has encouraged sales reps and others to seek short cuts over the hills and through the sticks.

As with traffic calming in towns, most post-1990 road safety measures only make it 'safe' to impose tolls on main routes, and put relative basic human rights back into the 18th century.

G PYE, Downham Road, Chatburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.