So Skipton magistrates have seen fit to unleash another 12-point menace back onto our roads. (Report in CH 25th November.) The latest culprit is just one added to the 8,500 or so (Environmental Transport Association figures in 2017 so unlikely to be materially different) who are legally allowed to continue driving with 12+ points on their licence, having pleaded "exceptional hardship" if they were banned.

A driver with nine or more points on their licence cannot pretend to be dismayed at the consequences of continuing to speed. Yet time and again magistrates are duped. The only genuine excuse for speeding is a situation when not speeding poses an immediate danger to life. Persistent speed offenders are a menace, and 38 mph in a 30 mph zone is downright reckless. Pedestrians and cyclists already face more than enough danger from those who keep to the speed limits.

The list of "hardships" in this latest case are feeble in the extreme:

• No one needs to collect their medication - home deliveries are available.

• One can hire a great many taxis for the annual cost of running a car.

• Cessation of a "voluntary taxi" service for friends and neighbours does not constitute "exceptional hardship". (It might be sparing them from a ride of terror!)

Driving should be a privilege, not a right. Our society, magistrates included, is besotted in its addiction to the motor vehicle. Fifty years ago the Dutch, who were then as car-mad as we were, suddenly woke up to the reality about the multi-layered damage done to society by car culture. There were protests, some of them violent, under the banner of "Stop Killing Our Children", and the outcome is an enviable society where cars and car drivers know their place, and that place is not at the top of the road "food chain". It is high time we followed their example, and our magistrates should be giving a lead in this.

John Fletcher

Sutton-in-Craven