Road deaths deserve more attention - The Guardian

Congratulations to Susanna Rustin for her article on road deaths, including that of Hamid Bouadimi's five-year-old son Hichame. The need to keep the appalling rate of fatal crashes on our roads (on average five deaths a day) in the public consciousness could not be greater. I have witnessed the appalling tragedy of people being killed on a seemingly routine basis, while there is a collusion of near silence from politicians, who choose to use road safety as a political football. Can you imagine the public outcry if the same number of people were being killed in public transport crashes? And yet – day in, day out – road deaths seem not to be a news story. Yes, measures like road humps and speed cameras are unpopular with some people, but if widespread support was created through persistent reporting with the depth, style and intelligence of Rustin's, then Mr Bouadimi's wish ('I don't want anyone to experience what we've been through', 13 October) would have a chance of being realised.
Tim Melhuish
Transport planner, London

•?People have a hopeless understanding of risk. They fear death more from meningitis, legionnaires' disease, mad cow disease, acts of terrorism etc than from a road accident. The number of people killed on our roads ought to cause constant outcry. It doesn't because, except for big pile-ups with multiple loss of life, the accidents rarely get on national news and appear sporadically on local news. Media outlets can play a part in changing this. You can raise consciousness of the road carnage by producing a National Serious Road Accident Report just like your weather report every day. All TV news, local and national, can do the same. It will stop road fatalities being ignored and change people's perception of risk.
David Porteous
Bristol

•?Your article highlights the increased use of mobile devices as another cause of worsening road safety. Given that research has shown that using such devices is as distracting as drink-driving, why is the punishment not the same? I am certain that a year's automatic ban for using mobile devices would see a rapid decrease in their use and an improvement in road safety.
Barry Norman
Drighlington, West Yorkshire