When oil goes up today, the pump price goes up tomorrow but it takes a few months before the oil bought today reaches the pumps, so why the instant price rise?
Of course when the price of oil comes down it takes that few months for the decrease to be passed on to the
motorist.
The price of gas is linked to the price of oil for some reason which I can't fathom. Cut the link and gas prices ought to come down again.
This situation owes more to greedy fuel suppliers boosting their profits than it does to reality. Speculators are making fortunes from all this too. They do nothing whatsoever for the economy but make their fortunes from ruining it.
The very least the speculators and fuel companies should face is seizure of their excessive profits by way of windfall taxes.
Jeff McCann, via email

Cameras do not improve safety
Swindon Council is right to believe that vehicle activated signs are more cost effective than speed cameras. The Department for Transport already knew, or should have known, that signs costing less than £1,000 per annum are rather better at reducing accidents and casualties than are speed cameras costing £50,000 per annum.
Their refusal to admit that they have been pursuing a camera policy which has clearly been ineffective when the same expenditure of public money on signs would have provided at least 50 times greater safety benefit, is a breach of public servants' duty of care to the public.
Incidentally, the defensive reaction of Wiltshire Camera Partnership to Swindon's withdrawal of funding – that their cameras have resulted in a two thirds drop in fatal and serious accidents at their sites – is self-serving nonsense.
Even the DfT admits that no more than 8% of such accidents involve speeds above limits.
Idris Francis, via email

Pheasants treated well before shoot
I wish people like animal rights campaigner Fiona Pereira would get their facts right.
Pheasants are not treated anything like she alleges. I am regularly involved in a local shoot and the rearing of pheasants.
These birds are not in cages, they are in pens which are the size of a wood, and there are not thousands in each one. They are fed and watered every day and cared for properly.
May I also remind her that if we didn't do this, some of the wonderful birds we see would no longer exist here as they are not native to Britain.
As for Ms Pereira's statistics . . . where did she get the fact that 40% of pheasants are only wounded and not retrieved? An arcade game?
Yes, birds are shot during the game season, and all are eaten or sold to restaurants for eating. I do not know of any shooter who would not go out of their way to pick up.
Lisa Brooks, via email

Thanks for funds
I am writing to thank all your readers who helped to make the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Help a Heart campaign a success last month.
So many people supported the campaign by digging deep and donating to our UK-wide house-to-house collections, buying a Heart Button from their local BHF Shop or raising funds in their own way, that we're well on our way to raising our target of £1.5m.
Jackie Skeel, head of fundraising campaigns at the BHF, via email