YEP Letters: February 25

How long before someone is seriously hurt?

Andy Connelly, Headingley

On Saturday night I was walking home with my partner along Headingley Lane towards Headingley centre at around 10.30pm - we were sober.

On two separate occasions someone threw items from vehicles and hit me. The first time several sprouts were thrown and hit me in the chest. The second projectile was an egg which hit me in the side of the head. These cars were travelling at 35-40mph and so the impacts hurt. I was lucky that I was not seriously injured by these idiots. The cars were going too fast for us to catch their number plates.

The next day I heard about Saturday’s incident when West Brom’s winger Chris Brunt was hit in the face by a coin thrown from the crowd.

The way the media treated that coin throwing is the way we should be reacting to throwing eggs from a car - outrage and condemnation.

However, the bouncers we talked to on Otley Road just treated it as a standard Saturday evening event.

They even said that in summer they had seen people firing paintball guns from cars at passers-by.

It cannot be right that things being thrown from cars has been normalised, that it is common enough not to invoke outrage.

How long til someone is seriously hurt by this kind of ridiculous behaviour?

Launching items from moving vehicles at pedestrians is assault - it is a crime.

I am not sure what the police or council can do about these incidents but it makes me nervous to walk on Headingley Lane and Otley Road at night.

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Hit dog owners in the pocket

S Wright, Leeds

My heart goes out to Mrs Timpson, re the Akita that attacked and killed her little dog.

I have a small Jack Russell aged nearly 16, and I don’t know what I would do or feel in that situation.

But once again the first thing that people say is the dog should be destroyed. Wrong, the irresponsible owner should no longer have the dog or any other in the future, and be given a massive fine on top, it is not the dog’s fault, it is the owner’s.

There already exists a law that states when dogs are walked in a place anywhere the public can access, then dogs have to be on a lead, which is pretty much everywhere. This law needs to be enforced.

I have seen owners walking their dogs without being on a lead, and when I politely enquired why, the owners will say he/she is obedient, and knows to stay with me, but they can be distracted, and run off, it is easily done.

Bringing back the licence would not rectify the problem, it never did before, the only way is to hit the owner in the pocket hard.

Council is throwing money away

J Westerman, by email

I absolutely agree with the concerns shown by N Bywater of Morley about talking bins.

It is just the same in Leeds, and I really think that the money could have been spent of something that would take the larger items.

I think it will cause more mess in the streets, as if people can’t get the rubbish in the bins it will be thrown on the floor. But as the previous item says there are other bins within a stone’s throw that will take the large items, so why do we need additional ones at that mega extra cost?

The council must be struggling to find things to spend their money on!

They are throwing money away on having all this graffiti painted on walls and think it’s nice instead of things that are more tasteful and relate to the areas that they are in.

Blinkered approach to EU

M Meeson, Leeds

With reference to Don Burslam’s letter (YEP February 22).

His blinkered approach to the EU success does not explain how being in the EU has meant we no longer have control of our own laws, our fishing industry has been decimated by EU quota laws, open borders has created a free for all, not only for EU members but for the massive unflux of migrants from Afghanistan, Syria and many African countries.

We give child benefits to EU migrants whose children are not even in the UK and we have no idea if they exist to start with.

We give millions of pounds per day into the EU coffers, money that could be spent on the NHS, on housing, and the well being of existing U.K residents.

Don Burslam need only to look at Norway and Switzerland, they are not in the EU but are thriving, they can trade with the world and not seek the EU’s permission to do so.

It’s a ‘no’ vote for me

Bill Tampin, Pontefract

Like me you are probably proud to be British.

I believe that we are the most democratic country in the world, with the privileges of free speech that we have. A person can offer an opinion without the sense of fear. In response sometimes a reaction is provoked but generally it is safe to say what is on your mind.

Similarly our justice system is again probably the best in the world, with generally fair and explicit judgements made by the courts. It is unfortunate that we now are having our judgements often overruled by Europe and policies such as health and safety controlled by European Standards, which are mainly based on our British Standards,that were devised by our excellent British management.

Then British people and businesses tend to comply with the European standards, often at high cost, but I can’t imagine most of the European countries doing the same.

I remember ISO 9000 coming out, which is the quality standard used in manufacturing. It was a verbatim copy of our BS 5750.

Isn’t it crazy that our Prime Minister has to negotiate with Europe the terms for paying benefits out of our taxpayers’ budget?

On top of all this it is actually costing the tax payer about £9 billion net for the privilege of being abused by the EU.

We existed very well before the EU, we traded with the world, managed our own affairs and used our own reliable justice system.

We still have NATO for security, which is bigger than anything offered by the EU, and we still communicate with the United States for intelligence and we would still have intelligence with other European countries if we came out.

We are a relatively efficient, wealthy country that can be independent again, managing our affairs and borders more efficiently, controlling our vastly expanding population, which is really stressing out our schools, NHS, housing and superstructure in general.

I would love to be totally British again. It is a no vote for me.

EU referendum: tax laws

G Waite, Leeds

Well well. Why am I not surprised?

Vodafone ‘threatening’ workers about jobs if we Brexit while it takes full advantage of tax laws in Luxembourg, of which the EU President, Jean-Claude Juncker, was the architect when he was Finance Minister and then PM of said country.

Perhaps Vodafone will have to pay its fair share of tax when we’re able to rule ourselves.