SIR, — The new mini roundabout at the Top Street Way/ Piggottshill Lane junction in Harpenden makes perfect sense, but the new pelican crossing and associated speed bumps must have been planned by someone without children. I bike to work on this road as t

SIR, - The new mini roundabout at the Top Street Way/ Piggottshill Lane junction in Harpenden makes perfect sense, but the new pelican crossing and associated speed bumps must have been planned by someone without children.

I bike to work on this road as the local children make their way to school and I have never seen them use the pelican crossing. I watch children cross the road at the previous mini-roundabout to avoid walking several hundred yards to and from the pelican crossing. So the lights are always green. At night the green lights burn incessantly while vehicles jolt over the speed bumps. I have never seen a pedestrian use the crossing since its installation so the energy to build and now to illuminate it seems to make it more of a white elephant than a pelican or a zebra.

Instead of more speed bumps, can we concentrate on some of the appalling road surfaces? This might reduce the damage to vehicles and increase the chance of them stopping when a pedestrian does cross the road.

CHRIS FOREMAN,

High Meads, Wheathampstead.