I HAVE to object at the letter from DJ Cook in the Echo of June 3.

First and foremost – speeding is not a criminal offence, it’s a minor/summary offence and does not result in a criminal record.

It’s a motoring offence, not a conviction (as, typically, you admit to the offence voluntarily, so a conviction is never obtained).

£8m is not a drop in the ocean at all. It’s a punitive tax on those people who, in most cases, accidentally stray slightly above the limit and the automaton machine then takes over.

Your licence plate is automatically captured, an automatic notice of intended prosecution (NIP) is then sent and an automatic fine issued (once you admit your guilt of course).

All of this is fully automated and pays no attention whatsoever to the road conditions nor time of day and without reference to the whole. The fines collected do nothing for road safety but are absorbed into the socalled safety partnerships to, oh, fund the cameras!

The fact remains – not all accidents are the result of speeding as DJ Cook would have you believe and infers when using the extended datum of ten years to make his/her statistics look reasonable.

What is also forgotten about here, and hardly ever reported, is that car manufacturers have risen to the issues suggested.

Modern cars have far superior mechanics, brakes (and reduced stopping distances far in excess of what the Highway Code suggests), engine management units, exhausts, safety systems and braking systems – leading to much lower pollution (certainly less than diesel buses and trains) than 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

Coincidentally, this is the same time period that the law referred to by DJ Cook was last updated.

In other words, we are hamstrung by statistics that are pointless, laws that are out of date and limits that haven’t changed since the Ford Model T was last on the road.

The car industry has changed – it’s just a shame the views have not, which is not progress but a retrograde step too far.

I am not suggesting for one moment that we should ignore the law or the reasons behind speed limits – but I am definitely saying not to tar everyone with the same broad brush. Speed cameras are an easily collectible tax.

MIKE SPRAGG, Hedge End