Further to Dave Booth (Letters, March 20), I too have puzzled over "Baby on board" signs.

I imagine most people who use them believe they are intended to warn other drivers to back off or drive with greater consideration.

However, given the often maniacal driving style of those who display the signs, I always thought that premise to be somewhat hypocritical.

However, a newspaper motoring columnist recently gave the answer to the conundrum.

Apparently, the idea originated in the US. The signs are intended to aid emergency workers who, when attending a road traffic accident, would see the sign and be alerted to the fact that a baby or small child might be lying hidden in the wreckage.

The signs should be easily removable and ought not to be carried when there is no baby on board, in order that emergency workers attending an accident do not waste valuable time searching for a non-existent baby instead of providing assistance to adults.

Ken Perry, Boxgrove, Goring-by-Sea

<Letter>

I must put up a balanced defence to Spencer Payne's comments about Hove's new parking scheme (Letters, March 26).

As a resident within this new scheme, I cannot tell you how much it has improved my quality of life.

Not only is it now possible to park on our road, something we had not been assured of doing since moving two years ago, but also the traffic using the road has decreased dramatically.

We can only assume this is because people are no longer driving around trying to find somewhere to store their car for a couple of weeks at a time.

People can still drive to work. There are plenty of pay-and-display bays that cost only £2 a day - not even the price of a lunchtime sandwich.

Brighton and Hove City Council has managed to implement a scheme that is sympathetic to both residents and workers travelling into the area and should be commended for it.

How Mr Payne can start to assume how residents feel is beyond me. There is only one point in his letter I can agree with.

He states he now feels sorry for the residents north of the Old Shoreham Road.

I know what it has been like to have our "leafy avenues littered with cars, some old wrecks and many not moved for weeks on end".

They never used to be north of the Old Shoreham Road because they were parked on our roads, within the new scheme.

-A Budd, Somerhill Road, Hove