Beat the Law - But Not in a Jaguar

Sir,

I have read with interest your recent Editorial on speed restrictions—personally I think you are being entirely too gloomy – I believe it’s still perfectly possible to maintain high average speeds. I do a cross-country journey of 68 miles each way, three times per week, and my average is 72 minutes. I use perfectly good “B” class roads in the main. I rarely see any police vehicles but, in any case, their patrol habits seem predictable to the point of boredom. I have three different routes; needless to say I know virtually every inch of each one. One curious thing I have noticed on my not-so-frequent motorway journeys: I use a large fast saloon —production of which ceased in 1960—and twice I have been in the company of a modern Jaguar, travelling in the upper 90s, when from seemingly out of nowhere we got a police patrol car on our tails, and in both cases they flagged down the Jaguar and waved me on! I mentioned this to a police Inspector at a recent social function. He smiled and said “Well, really, we cannot go wrong with Jaguars, they are invariably driven too fast, or with complete disregard for other road users, or they have been stolen, or in the case of the older models, they are unroadworthy”. Does this mean that in general they are agin Jaguars? If so, there’s a moral somewhere!

Address supplied J. CHAMBERS