Up the junction in utter confusion
Dear Editor, Can the person who designed the new junction at Snow Hill please step forward and explain themselves.

Birmingham has always excelled at producing barmy street systems, but this time the suits in the roads department have really done us proud.

If you're sitting in the left-hand lane, you're entitled to ignore the filter light and stay there for a good couple of minutes (with angry motorists leaning on their car horns behind), before the lights finally change and you can drive straight on.

If you try to turn right, you are forced to work your way through a confusing, maze-like network of carriageways, before finally finding the right one. It's a miracle how nobody has yet turned the wrong way down one of these, causing a major accident.

Do people get paid pro-rota for coming up with these nightmarish designs - so the more confusing a junction, the more they get in their wage packets?

Or are they just incompetent?
 DESMOND TILLEY, A former regular visitor to Birmingham

New Year reward for not-so-deserving causes
Dear Editor, Whatever people say about the New Year Honours, they never fail to deliver - deliver gongs to the usual raft of undeserving celebrities that is.

This year, among the traditional clutch of C-listers, I feel a couple are worthy of particular note.

Firstly, Carry On actor Leslie Philips who - lovely man though he is - could never really be accused of possessing great talent. Indeed, his only achievements seem to be the catchphrase "Hellooo" and living to be 83.

I'd also like to reserve a special mention for 71-year-old Michael Parkinson - the housewife's favourite. Thirty-five years in the chatshow business did nothing to improve his interviewing technique and he continued, right until the end, to display a breathtaking level of sycophancy towards his guests. Some may think he deserves to be recognised for this - I agree, just not with an OBE.

Then there's pop princess Kylie Minogue, of former Neighbours fame. Now, before anyone complains, I know she's had a hard time recently having been diagnosed with breast cancer, but she's hardly on a par with the people who work day-in day-out to improve the lives of others, giving up their free time - and often all the cash they have. People like Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, who works with fellow survivors of the Rwandan genocide, or Jane Tomlinson, who fought terminal cancer for years to successfully raise thousands of pounds for charity.

However, for all my cynicism there were a few people this year who genuinely deserved to be included - Capt Tracey Palmer, of the Salvation Army, and Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of mental health charity Sane, to name but two.

Meanwhile, in the Midlands, there was our own Alex Bulloch, of King's Norton, who founded the War Research Society in 1972. Since then he has spent 35 years transporting people to the the graves of loved ones who were killed during the First and Second World Wars.

And he greeted news of his MBE in a typically humble style, saying only: "I am deeply honoured by this award."

These are the people who truely inspire and make a difference. The ordinary people who do extraordinary things for other ordinary people.

I only hope their honours are not diminished by having to share the limelight with those whose only real achievement has been to build their own careers.
 TIM WATSON, Edgbaston

Restore faith in Christian values
Dear Editor, While more people shopped on the internet than attended church this Christmas, there can be no doubt that Britain still has a strong Christian heritage. Even atheist Richard Dawkins confesses to singing Christmas carols, and believes children should grow up with a knowledge of the Bible.

So, how about it? Read the Bible in 2008.
RICHARD BENSON,  By email

Missing gong
Dear Editor, Stop, hold the front page. There's been a dreadful mistake in the New Year Honours.

They've forgotten to mention Mike Whitby. An oversight, surely?

He was such a strong tip for this year's list, it surely must have been more than simple conjecture and wishful thinking.

And what did I hear he was due to be honoured for? Services to New Street station, of course.

 JOHN MARKS, Birmingham

Get tough on car death sentencing
Dear Editor, If someone fires a crossbow or a gun at a cyclist and badly injures them, the villain would surely be sent to jail for years rather than months. Five years minimum where a gun is concerned is it not?

Why then, when Tahir Chaudhry deliberately drove his van at cycle courier Greg Walker, knocking him from his bicycle and badly injuring him, was the villain only sentenced to nine months jail (High Court in Edinburgh)?

A cyclist doesn't necessarily need to be hit to cause them serious injury or death. Simply causing them to swerve and lose control is all it takes: the head hits a solid object - road, lamp post, parked car - and it could be brain damage, if not fatal.

To launch an arrow or a bullet - a potentially lethal missile - one simply points and squeezes a trigger. To launch a motor vehicle - a potentially lethal missile - one simply steers and presses an accelerator. What in heaven's name is the difference?

There are 12 times more people killed by motor vehicles in the UK each year than there are by guns. It wouldn't be the first time a cyclist has been killed by a motor vehicle being deliberately driven at/into them, so there can be no denying that this sort of behaviour kills.

Isn't the time long overdue when such lunatic drivers were put away for a very long time?
ALLAN RAMSAY, RoadPeace, Radcliffe