IT is quite understandable for the Cherry Tree Resident (LET, July 24) to be totally confused with the question of road safety schemes as to where and why they are implemented. In the reply, the council spokesman gave a reasonably logical answer in that they prioritise the schemes based on the number of injury accidents and costs.

It would appear however, this spokesman is quoting from that much leafed publication "The Blackburn with Darwen Council Book of Excuses and Paraphrases.' He tells of how the safety scheme in the Woodlands area of Preston New Road is meeting its objectives i.e. reducing injury accidents. However he says that the zebra crossing at Garden Street has different aims. Are there aims of road safety schemes other than safety? Well, yes, apparently there are.

A perfect example of this is in Tockholes where 18 speed humps and six chicanes were implemented in February last year. Graham Burgess, the executive director (Regeneration and Technical), stated in a recent letter to me that this traffic calming scheme "was not originally intended or promoted to reduce injury accidents.'

Well it couldn't, could it? According to the Police Database of Accidents for five years prior to the scheme there have been only two injury accidents along that stretch of Tockholes Road, neither being speed related. There have been no pedestrian injuries; no children have been injured and only one fatality in over 30 years. And the cost? Just a mere £60,000.

Call this prioritising Mr Council Spokesman?

DAVID GROGAN, Tockholes Road, Tockholes.