Reading about The Journal's Safety First examination of fixed cameras in Northumbria prompted reader Malcolm Clasper to call in and give his views. Malcolm first got behind the wheel in 1955 and six years later became the first in the North-East to pass the advanced driving test. Malcolm, 66, of The Orchard in Hepscott near Morpeth, says of the West Mains fixed speed camera on the A1: "Travelling south on the A1 only a third of the camera is showing, it is a joke. "I travel up to Berwick a lot and I just can't believe they can get away with this camera. "I am not against cameras but I don't like the way they are hidden to catch drivers." As a former regional manager for a pharmaceutical company, Malcolm says he has clocked up over three million driving miles in his lifetime. Driving is his passion, he owns a Jaguar XK8 convertible, and believes the standard of driving, not speed, is the biggest problem on the road. He said: "I think speed cameras can do a good job in the right places but too many of them are in the wrong places. "Cameras are an easy option to pull in huge revenues that then disappear into a black hole. "In Durham they don't have any cameras and they don't seem to have a worse accident record." He believes that if the A1 was a dual carriageway there would be fewer accidents, but that the real speeding problems lie in the villages. "At 8am and around 5.30pm you have traffic racing through villages at 60mph, in those situations cameras would be valuable, but the cameras aren't used there. "I think people should be made to re-sit their driving test every 10 years at least." | 
