SIR - On Thursday, September 14, I visited the Shell Garage at Saltaire to put fuel into my nearly-empty car. As I was in the queue, smoke began to rise from my bonnet. I just sat there feeling totally embarrassed and not knowing what to do.

An employee of the garage told me to vacate my vehicle. Another employee told me not to worry and that it was just overheating.

This young man then pushed my vehicle out of the way and bought me a cup of coffee. He then took me into the office, reassured me that he had a mechanical background and that he would he would sort out my car, which he did.

The young man's name was Maxwell and he and his friend Steve were kindness itself. Two young men with nothing to gain were courteous, kind and lovely, whereas all everyone else were interested in was filling up their cars with petrol.

I cannot thank them enough and I would be grateful if, through your column, you would pass on my thanks. It is so reassuring to know that common courtesy and kindness, especially in our younger generation, is still alive and well.

Mrs Ruth Wood, Cheviot Gate, Low Moor.

SIR - Your Comment on September 14 asking for fuel and road taxes "to be spent in transport-related areas" and not on health, seems to assume that motor vehicles do not impact our hospitals and GPs' surgeries. It also assumes that the taxes meet the full cost of transport-related expenditure.

Road accidents cost the NHS, emergency services, social security and social services. Policing traffic costs. Pollution and congestion cost. In fact, estimates of health, pollution and congestion traffic costs have ranged from £28m to £61bn, while fuel duty raises only £23bn.

The Treasury has calculated that the motorists are each subsidised to the tune of about £1,000 per year because they do not meet the full price of the costs they impose on society as a whole.

The sizeable reduction in pollution in the last few days publicised on Look North demonstrates the unseen burden they impose on us - estimated deaths from vehicle pollution may be as many as 30,000 per year.

By the way, if motorists' arguments are supposedly intelligent, why, when I cycled past three petrol station queues on Thursday, were they sitting there with their engines running?

Mike Healey (Bradford Cycling Action Group), Dyehouse Road, Bradford 12

SIR - Firstly, the fuel protesters. Did they support the miners strike in 1984, or condemn the fascist police state tactics used? No.

Secondly, why have the police escorted protesters in trucks, while all the miners got was a truncheon in the face?

Thirdly, why has the Government once again shown contempt for the protests and the working class in general? We all know that income tax is the fairest tax.

Why is an image of brute force given to protesters, both of 1984 and present, when the greatest act of violence was committed by the Governments of the time against their communities and livelihoods?

One reason for anger could be that so much has been given by the public for so little in return.

C Spurgin, Dorset Street, Skipton.

SIR - Re Buck Park quarry landfill. I am amazed that Mr Collings (the managing director of Wastewise) considers Denholme residents are gullible enough to think his company's proposal has any benefit for the area.

Besides the site being technically flawed by the action committee's hydrologist and geologist reports, the bonus offered by landfill tax credits is already available to Denholme from funds generated by the land mountain (no longer a fill) at Manywells, Cullingworth.

Fortunately for Denholme, government inspectors, like the planning sub-committee, will visit Buck Park Quarry where a short detour will show them the ecological disaster at Manywells caused by the "finest engineered" landfill in the country.

The detrimental effect to the visual aspect in Cullingworth is obvious to everybody except the civil servants paid to protect our interests.

Currently Manywells landfill is 279 metres high, 11 metres above the quarry it was filling and the final height shown in the original planning documents without the one metre clay cap.

Manywells is a reminder to Denholme not to expect any protection from Bradford planners or the Environmental Agency from the ecological devastation that will develop. This is because Bradford Council act as poacher and gamekeeper, being unable or unwilling to reduce their dependency on landfill in accordance with EEC and Government guidelines and therefore they need to grant permission to infill available space.

How about Provincial House opposite the Town Hall?

R H Marshall, Cullingworth Road, Cullingworth.

SIR - Having, like so many other folk who've put their trust in the Bradford & Bingley, seen their house deeds go up in smoke and then being told that what pay-out there is will be on its way in due course, I'm almost tempted to visit the Dome to find out what financial efficiency is all about!

But I've no need to bother. This morning I got a letter from the B&B's "Product Manager" Jonathan Lees who is anxious to help me with planning for future funding for my long-term care. Have they so messed me about that they can actually see I'm fading?

Sid Brown, Glenhurst Road, Shipley.

SIR - In the T&A of September 12, I read that "shrubs are growing from the gutters of Bradford's listed buildings" and I assumed that Bradford was going to try to be elected as "European City of Horticulture", but now I realise the city fathers are going to invest some thousands of pounds to employ a "supremo'" to make our city the European Capital of Culture!

Am I a lone voice, crying in the wilderness, when I say "Save your money. You're on to a loser here!"?

Think of the Dome, the Millennium Bridge, the Pop Music Centre at Sheffield, or, nearer home, Transperience. I also fear the Life Force Centre may soon be added to this list, already now on a "free admission" basis.

Why not advertise this job (like the current "Have you had an accident?" adverts on television) on a "No win, no fee" basis?

Ernest Spacey, Hollingwood Lane, Bradford BD7

SIR - In June I wrote to Mr David Hall, Yorkshire regional manager for Sustrans, regarding cyclists and broken glass on the Spen Valley Greenway. I received a reply on August 28 stating:

1. First rule of Cyclists' Code is: "Give way to pedestrians." They ask people to "fit bells" (I've never seen or heard of anyone asking cyclists to fit bells). Why not fit signs at all entrances to such effect, asking them not to speed?

2. He states that David Jackson, the construction manager, didn't know he was excavating broken glass with soil until the glass got washed up by rainfall.

Now the responsibility for finding topsoil has been passed on to Kirklees.

Meanwhile, the dangers remain. What a pity to spoil such a grand project.

B Ellis, Pyenot Hall Lane, Cleckheaton.