Reading Mark Ruskell's letter (February 13) on tolls and congestion led me to reflect on the traffic reports I hear every night on my trip home. Every evening, there are reports of lengthy tailbacks and endless queues of traffic stretching out from the Forth Road Bridge. I expect most people will have their engine running while their car sits in the tailback.

Sitting in congestion with the car engine on wastes fuel and damages the environment, so I always switch the car off when I'm at a standstill. I am in the minority when I do this.

Stationary traffic must cause obscene volumes of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere, and I don't see how retaining the tolls and preventing traffic from moving freely will help the environment. Surely even the Greens would accept that it's better to use fuel for going somewhere rather than staying still?

Alison Thewliss, 170 Dumbarton Road, Glasgow

IT IS difficult to understand the view of the executive that abolishing tolls on the Forth and Tay bridges would increase congestion. The effect of abolishing tolls and other obstructions on roads is to facilitate the free flow of traffic and reduce pollution. The failure to complete the M74 link in Glasgow has produced congestion and delays, and has led to unnecessary carbon dioxide and monoxide production in exhausts from impeded vehicles. A transport policy based on the notion that traffic congestion can be eased by tolls is quite absurd.

Scotland's unique topography and lower population density require radically different transport and energy policies from England. The notion that we should differentially adopt a separate scheme for charging motorists in Scotland for individual journeys, in addition to punitive fuel charges we already pay, is alarming.

Dr David Purves, 8 Strathalmond Road, Edinburgh

Road charging and erosion of civil liberties
THE articles by Ian Bell and Ruth Wishart not only deal with road charging and second-class citizenship respectively (February 13) but also cast light on the erosion of our civil liberties by this so-called democratic government. At every available opportunity, another method of surveillance and/or restriction is introduced under the guise of saving us from terrorism. Although such a threat does, indeed, exist, how much of it is directly due to the government's ill-conceived ventures at home and abroad?

Has this government not basically compromised the country's values by progressively introducing so-called security measures that have not only been ineffective but also counter-productive? We only need to look at the British intelligence which was used as the basis for the decision to start the illegal Iraq war to see the truth of that.

At home, the government plans to go ahead with a raft of measures which includes the introduction of ID cards through CCTV coverage, almost 24-hour surveillance if congestion charging is introduced and other "weapons" still in the pipeline. These measures do not prevent terrorism but do invade our private space and could lead to very restrictive and undemocratic legislation.

Ian F M Saint-Yves, Dunvegan, School Brae, Whiting Bay, Arran