Clive Benson said about Cruisers "yet again the cruisers are causing problems with their idiotic and antisocial behaviour" (August 6).

It would be nice to target this statement at boy racers and not cruisers.

A boy racer drives like a racing driver on the road, a cruiser, cruises at lower speed, showing off their pride and joy.

He infers car enthusiasts are only those who own restored and classic vehicles. How can he reach this conclusion?

He also mentions big spoilers, wide, fat tyres and noisy exhausts. Spoilers and wide tyres increase adhesion to the road, giving more stability, better braking and handling.

Noisy exhausts, are mostly there to increase performance for better fuel economy. But, in the case of boy racers, exhausts are just noisy and make no difference to the cars' performance.

I am a car enthusiast, buthave not restored my car. I do sometimes attend a cruise to Southend, with like-minded enthusiasts who all own Subarus.

Our group (the Essex Scooby Crew), go to Southend once a month, never breaking the speed limit into Southend.

In other words, cruising to Southend. The club also attends school fetes, and takes part in a Santa Cruise, delivering gifts donated from our group to children in homes and similar.

For further information about our group, or donating gifts for the Santa Cruise, visit www. SouthendCruise.Com

Nate
Essex Scooby Crew
Arterial Road
Rayleigh

...As a resident of Burnt Mills, Basildon, I can assure Lou and other racers, the noise from high-speed driving, revving, skidding, continuous horn-sounding, exhaust backfiring, cheering, clapping, laughing and generally having a great time is more than audible. Given the right weather conditions it really does sound as though its on our street. Sound can travel very long distances. We have occasionally heard the racers on Sunday afternoons and week nights, but almost every weekend the noise can begin as early as 9pm and continue until the early hours, one Saturday recently until 4 am. It must be a fantastic buzz to be part of the Greased Lightning scene but if you could just have a bit more consideration and limit your racing, perhaps to a couple of hours before midnight, you have no idea of the difference it would make to hundreds of people.

Christine Sharp
Basildon (Full address supplied)