ON the letter from Roger Gough, who was involved in a collision with a cow on Minchinhampton common.

Posted by DanBob: Well done for admitting to this.Until it happens to them, people just aren’t aware of how easy it is to fail to spot a cow at night.

Everyone rants on about ‘idiot drivers’ and ‘how difficult is it to see a very large object in your way’ but cattle really can move fast and when visibility is poor (eg headlights coming towards you resulting in no side vision) you would need to be travelling at less than 10mph to avoid hitting one that suddenly steps out from the side of the road.

So yes, maybe we should all drive at 10mph at night up there and until we do, accidents will continue to happen. But we won’t, so they will...

Posted by Monkey49: A solution needs to be found that caters to residents and non-residents alike.

Even if the common was littered with bright warning signs, we’d still get incidents as black cows roaming the roads at night can catch the most alert of drivers unawares.

In Switzerland they let cows roam free near roads, but put simple rope/stake dividers up to stop them wandering off the grass. It’s a relatively cheap way of containing cattle in a large area.

Perhaps it is time to contain cows to one area at a time and herd them between pastures occasionally.

Posted by ChristineMG: I was involved in an incident with a cow some four years ago, I was driving on Dr Browns Road heading towards the common when I spotted a herd of cows on the bank to the left of me. I stopped as it looked like they were about to move, then a cow from the back of the herd had a hissy fit and ran through the herd down the bank and side swiped my car damaging the wing, door and bonnet, it quickly retreated back into the herd leaving me with £2,500 of damage to my parked car. When I reported it to the police I was asked “what did the cow look like?” She didn’t like my answer that it had four legs! Anyhow I was told that if the cow wanted to dance on my car there is nothing and no one we can hold accountable for this.

On protest singer Robb Johnson’s free gig.

Posted by Nevertrustahippy: We should support these old hippies., like folk music and morris dancers, they represent a bygone age as more and more old Lefties die out or take up tai chi.