SIR - What are motorbikes all about? For 50 years until the 1960s, they offered the only affordable transport for the working man and, with a sidecar attached, for a small family too.

But the world has moved on, while motorbikes remain noisy, dirty, unsafe, unstable, anti-social and inefficient: in summary a menace to all.

Some may try to justify small town-bikes for city courier jobs but, in the main, there is now no need for all the leather-fetish we see, and certainly hear, around us so much.

Maybe we could introduce some new limitations, for example "25/25/25". That is, maximum speed of 25mph, maximum 25 decibels of noise and a minimum age of 25 to ride one.

Then perhaps our roads would be quieter, safer and more in keeping with 2006, not 1906.

Graham Hoyle, Kirkbourne Grove, Baildon