I REFER to "Spotlight on bike accidents" in the Free Press on August 29.

So Government funding has been received by Bucks County Council to enable the highways department to "hopefully dispel" what their accident analysis manager Malcolm James already believes, before the research, is a myth that in motor cycle accidents motorists are more often at fault.

He states that the most at risk are the middle-aged people who have never ridden before (but who, unlike born-again bikers, have nevertheless had to successfully undergo all training requirements and regulations introduced to "cut motorcycle accidents").

What is the betting that those doing the "research" do not ride motorcycles and will take no notice whatsoever of those who do?

Perhaps, like the Thames Valley Police, the researchers will spend some of the funding by enlisting the help of the Road Transport and Research Laboratory, described in the BFP June 20 as a "leading centre of excellence in the field of transport research."

But they nevertheless affirm that the stopping ability of the cars of 2003 has not improved on that of the cars of 1946, the majority of which were of pre-1939 manufacture.

In short, another total waste of taxpayers' contributions to justify the existence of a bunch of people in order to create yet another illusion to blame something other than the cause, from which some money can be extracted.

P Somerville Coningsby Road High Wycombe