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Feel fear on bikes

I MUST congratulate Chris on yet another excellent diatribe against cyclists clearly written from the comfort of a metal cage propelled by a powerful engine with numerous safety features.

Chris, take a bike ride around Swindon as I do most days. Feel the abject sense of fear as a large percentage of drivers close pass to get by at all costs, rather than taking a few moments to consider the safety of the other road user. We must blame the drivers all of the time when they drive their vehicles into cyclists. Equally we must have a deterrent that prevents them from doing so.

I enjoyed your quoting of the highway code at cyclists.

Maybe you need to refresh your own driving qualifications as you missed Rule 163 – ‘give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car’. That’s about four-five foot, isn’t it? Would you overtake a car on the same narrow road you mentioned? No. But you’d be prepared to break the code you so love to overtake a cyclist.

DAVE BARTER

Greywethers Avenue

Swindon

....

Revenge not justice

I DON’T know if Bill Williams was serious when he demanded that the issue of capital punishment for murderers, child molesters and rapists should be put to a referendum. But he has a point.

He claims that, if asked, a public majority would say ‘hang them’. So that’s all right then. Except that last year the British Social Attitudes Report found 48 per cent of the 2,878 people it surveyed were in favour of capital punishment – the lowest figure since the survey began in 1983, when around 75 per cent of people were in favour. So Mr Williams’ certainty about a referendum result might be misplaced.

But let us assume he is right. Why not have have public executions – preferably at weekends so we could pack some sandwiches, take the kids and make a day out of it? And we could have a referendum that might well show most people want to ‘bring back the cat’.

I wouldn’t be surprised, either, if they agreed with the idea that male sex offenders should be castrated and shoplifters have their hands cut off. That would be a lesson! How about graffiti artists being put in the stocks? So let’s have lots of referendums and let the will of the mob prevail!

But there are a few things that trouble me. Firstly, in the words of Amnesty International: “The death penalty legitimises an irreversible act of violence by the state and will inevitably claim innocent victims. As long as human justice remains fallible, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated.” Think ‘Birmingham Six’....

Secondly, statistics show that the death penalty leads to a brutalisation of society and, consequently, an increase in the murder rate. In the USA, more murders occur in states where capital punishment is allowed. Between 2000-2010, the murder rate in states with capital punishment was 25-46 per cent higher than those without, according to figures from the FBI. So it seem likely that the more we hang, the more victims we get.

Finally, in Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s words: “To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge. It is not justice.”

BAS JONES

Grosvenor Road

Old Town