Carole Whittingham is more aware than most people of road-safety issues. Since her son Steven was fatally injured in a crash at Heckmondwike involving a joyrider ten years ago she has devoted much of her time to campaigning for improved safety measures. She knows a great deal about the subject.

So when she saw her own accident-damaged Ford Fiesta back on the road three weeks after she had sold it to a dealer as a write-off, with what was claimed to be an irreparably-twisted chassis, she was well qualified to appreciate the potential tragedy it represented.

Mrs Whittingham's dismay is fully justified. Our busy roads are dangerous enough without scrapped cars being done up after a fashion and finding their way into the hands of drivers eager for a bargain. The chance to buy a cheap car is particularly hard for young people to resist, and many of them are not bothered to ask too many questions about its mechanical history.

Mrs Whittingham claims that scrapyards have freedom to do what they want with the vehicles that come to them, and wants the law tightening to ensure that when a car is scrapped, that indeed is the end of the road for it.

As she says, it is perfectly acceptable to cannabalise write-offs for their parts. That sort of recyling fulfils a useful function by providing cheap spares. But bodging up a badly-damaged vehicle to put it back on the road is a very dangerous practice which needs to be stopped.