YOUR write up about speeding in Stratford Road really is bordering on sensationalism.

Perhaps your reporters will be writing in The Mail next.

Whilst I feel very sorry that three people have had their cars written off, this is definitely an extremely small minority of drivers that cause this sort of damage and yet again supposedly many more of us are doing such unbelievably bad things.

I’ve lived up and down this road for many years, walk up and down it and drive up and down it at least once a day if not twice.

I’ve never come across these regular speeds of 70mph and above as described by a resident and then reported by you.

Where is your evidence?

Where are all the facts, the logged speeds etc etc etc.

And as for the 50mph claimed involving these cars, anyone that has had any dealings with the modern car, will know that if it was this speed the ‘Crumple Zones’ would have made this picture ten times worse.

Believe me, I’ve seen cars crashed in a hanger in Japan and the front ends, even with a side swipe at that speed have completed folded up (as they are required, by the NCAP testing, that today saves many lives).

I don’t dismiss the fact that maybe this car was speeding, maybe over the 20mph stated but more like 30mph is a lot nearer the truth.

Please please please stop this constant barrage about the 20mph speeds and then going some way past the truth without the true facts.

Guessing and thoughts are not actual facts.

And just a final note, if there are many that could reach these supposed 70mph speeds, we must have some of the best race drivers in the world and why don’t we have a F1 world champion from Stroud?

I’m sure even the likes of Lewis Hamilton wouldn’t even consider doing that speed in a top class Mercedes, up and down Bisley Old Road with all that traffic during the day and the parked cars all over the place, wherever the owner feels it convenient for them to be ‘dumped’, not thinking about anyone else’s safety.

Maybe this is the cause of another resident being ‘almost hit by a car’, as the driver couldn’t see him with all the parked metal obscuring his view.

Who knows?

So in future when reporting these type of things, please don’t use them to push the same button, of speed, which in many cases it actually comes down to undue care and attention.

Report it how it should have been.

A person will appear before a court for his and only his bad driving and total lack of observation.

Give us the facts, not sensationalism.

Thousands of us in and around Stroud are considerate drivers and yet everyone will suffer for one or two.

Ray Relph

Stroud