Your article (“Safety plea as road toll rises”, The Herald, December 23) makes disturbing reading but what will be done? The comments from the transport minister and Police Scotland do not inspire any hope that the basic challenges will be addressed.

Most of us are out and about on our roads most days and will see how poor road behaviour is. Yes, we hear all too often about people cycling at a standard that leaves something to be desired and we can see people walking along looking at their phones and not at what is happening around them, but they will most likely be the injured party in any collision.

The main cause of all these road collisions is poor driving standards. Drivers who exceed speed limits, drive while under the influence of drink or drugs, drivers who use their phone while driving, drivers who jump traffic lights, overtake on blind bends, etc. If they should be found guilty of causing death or injury, the penalties are lenient in the extreme. We regularly hear of drivers “escaping” a prison sentence even after taking someone’s life, even if they have deliberately driven too fast, chosen to use the phone while driving, etc.

All too often collisions and crashes involving this poor behaviour are euphemistically referred to as “accidents” when they are nothing of the sort.

On occasion the penalty for this below-standard driving will be the driver losing their licence: a good move, in my opinion, but what happens when the duration of the licence removal is over? After three, six, 12 months, or even longer, of not driving, the driver is given their licence back and is free to drive again! Not one iota of action has been taken to address the disastrous behaviour that caused the injury and/or death. So it’s yet more “accidents” waiting to happen.

If we are serious about reducing death and injury on our roads then we need to ensure that any driver who loses their licence sits, and passes, a full driving test before being allowed to drive again. For many this will, no doubt, include their first theory test, as well as the practical test.

I suggest that many people will find this challenging, but if we are to address this issue, and address it we must, then we must ensure that every person in charge of a motor vehicle on our roads is fully competent.

Otherwise there will be more crocodile tears from our government and our police next time road injury and death statistics are released.

Patricia Fort, Glasgow

Consequences for our economy

“No ifs, no buts, no maybes about it”, said Humza Yousaf as he insisted that the majority would pay less tax in Scotland than the rest of the UK (“First Minister forced to defend budget at bad-tempered FMQs”, The Herald, December 22). He did not want us to think of the eye-watering levels of marginal tax that his Government will now take from so many middle and higher income Scots. Far better to keep our focus on the fiscal sleight of hand whereby successive SNP finance secretaries have given a paltry amount of less than 50p a week to 51% of taxpayers to try to justify milking the other 49%.

He wanted to give the impression that we are paying less tax in Scotland than our neighbours across the border, but the reality is we are now collectively paying £1.5billion more tax to live in Scotland rather than elsewhere in the UK.

Humza Yousaf spoke with the same level of conviction as his predecessor on her first day in office when she claimed she would work for everyone in Scotland not just those who voted for her, or later when she said we should judge her on her record on education. As we came to know to our cost, whenever Nicola Sturgeon spoke with such certainty was a red flag for what was to follow. Think also of the video of her “nothing to see here” remonstrations to colleagues on the SNP’s executive committee on the subject of the party’s finances.

So when our current First Minister assures us so forcefully that they have our finances in hand and that most of us are paying less than our neighbours in the south, we know to think carefully about the real consequences for Scotland’s economy and all those working hard to try to make something of their lives.

Keith Howell, West Linton

Read more: Letters: NHS is in need of massive overhaul, but SNP hasn't the courage to face it

Where are their principles now?

The final First Ministers Questions of 2023 was a rather heated affair, mainly due to the Scottish Budget proposals being presented to the Chamber.

The Conservatives were not surprisingly opposing the SNP budget, opposing the continuation of the SNP’s system of progressive taxation, additional funding for our NHS, the increase in the Scottish Child Payment and all the mitigating measures the SNP have put in place, in an effort to protect Scotland from Westminster’s austerity cuts. But it was not only the Conservatives who were opposing the Scottish Government’s socially just budget, Labour were at it also.

Where have the founding principles of the Labour party gone? Why are Labour in Scotland not supporting an increase to the Scottish Child Payment, a payment that has gone to over 300,000 eligible households in an effort to tackle child poverty? Are Labour’s founding principles a thing of the past for Scottish Labour?

Catriona C Clark, Falkirk

Who should we blame for this?

Anent the “SNP bad” diatribes on these pages castigating the Holyrood administration, I offer some information I recently stumbled upon.

Research by the Future Health Research Centre reveals an estimated 464,000 people each year in England who are admitted to hospital have a condition related to malnutrition. The Malnutrition Task Force estimates 1.3m English pensioners display signs of malnutrition. Another study shows the average height of a five-year-old boy in England is dropping compared to previous decades whilst in most comparable countries it is continuing to increase.

Sounds to me as if there are big health and welfare problems south of the border that appear to be getting worse; what I simply can’t understand is how the SNP administration is causing them.

David J Crawford, Glasgow

The Last Bus to a sad end

AS the Scottish Government looks for savings to plug its deficit, the criteria used for public funding of film production seems one area ripe for review.

Something of a “bus anorak” and admirer of that brilliant actor, Timothy Spall, I looked forward to The Last Bus, screened recently on the BBC, until the words “Creative Scotland” – Scotland’s arts quango – rolled up on the opening credits.

The Last Bus follows a terminally ill pensioner Tom (Spall) on a journey from John O’Groats to Cornwall, for a final visit to the grave of his only child. It begins well. As Tom makes his way through Scotland by various buses we encounter magnificent scenery and lovely people.

But things take a turn for the worse on crossing the border, with Tom witnessing a fellow bus passenger, a niqab-wearing Muslim mum, being verbally abused by a stereotypical young racist (ie white and working-class).

Further south, despite being obviously unwell, Tom is removed from a bus by a nasty driver who barks that his concessionary pass applies only in “Jockland”. This leaves Tom marooned on a lonely country road but never mind, help soon comes in the offer of a lift in a Transit van by a group of Ukrainian men.

Unlike the English they are a friendly bunch and invite Tom to a Ukrainian-themed party, complete with yellow and blue flags, folk songs and traditional costumes.

When the English aren’t nasty they’re insensitive. In one B&B, Tom is kept awake at night by the sexual antics of the young couple in the adjacent room. At breakfast the following morning, the male openly boasts to Tom about his sexual prowess, gloatingly comparing it to the old man’s physically distressed condition.

Happily (largely thanks to kind Scots and Ukrainians), Tom eventually makes it to his destination. Well, at least it says “Land’s End” on the front of the bus but the scene was clearly filmed in Scotland, not Cornwall.

A cheap end to a sad (in more ways than one) film.

Ken Houston, Edinburgh

Read more: Letters: We must have PR if we are to have a chance of saving UK politics

Learning to live with magpies

Lesley Mackiggan writes again about her hatred of magpies (Letters, December 22). I recall a few years ago she wrote about trapping them in a cage called a Larsen Trap and, when caught, banging their heads against a wall until dead. The farmer who told her about this method presumably had a special licence to do so.

It is illegal under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 to kill magpies in this way in a private garden. These lovely birds are thriving in my garden in Glasgow because I feed both them and the small finches and tits who come to the bird table.

If deprived of food, crows, magpies etc may well attack and kill smaller birds, but they co-exist when food is available to them, as I have found.

Elizabeth Mueller, Glasgow