THE police helicopter being used to check on motorists is an absolute waste of resources and money! We are always being told that police resources are stretched, so why do they not concentrate their efforts on doing what the vast majority of the public

THE police helicopter being used to check on motorists is an absolute waste of resources and money!

We are always being told that police resources are stretched, so why do they not concentrate their efforts on doing what the vast majority of the public want them to concentrate on, and that is catching the real bad guys - thugs, robbers, and drug dealers. Have they never heard of the law of diminishing returns?

We are already one of the most (if not the most) CCTV'd country in the developed world.

What is this initiative going to cost to pick up a few more speeding motorists or motor bikers? Given the millions and millions of car miles driven in this country every day the level of accidents is actually amazingly low.

The only way to reduce drastically the number of accidents is if we set a nationwide speed limit of say 10mph. Is that practical - I don't think so.

On top of that we have to put up with more visual pollution of our roads. More signs to add to the millions of signs already in existence, messing up the countryside and towns.

I wonder how many signs there actually are in Essex, and how many are of any real value - for example what does the sign with a car on top of what look like a couple of skid marks actually mean, and what does anyone think it actually contributes to road safety?

To Essex Council and the police - get a grip of what the priorities are (see above) and concentrate on those, using the resources you have targeted at real crime.

Leon Lister, by e-mail