Leading article: Top speed
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Your support makes all the difference.Life in the slow lane has become a little too fast for the good denizens of the Scilly Isles. After decades of avoiding anything as new-fangled and uncivilised as speed cameras, the island's authorities have at last decided to import the hated instrument.
Admittedly the Scilly Isles only have nine miles of road, all of them on the main island. And admittedly the speed limit is 60 miles per hour on roads too windy for motorists ever to reach much more than half this.
But inhabitants and visitors have started to complain that decorum is being forgotten as drivers edge up their speeds. There's also the principle of the thing. "There is an element," says Sgt Charlie Craig, the man in charge of the police, "that thinks Scilly isn't in the UK and the laws of the UK don't apply on Scilly."
Not that he means to do anything as crude as using the camera to prosecute anyone. "If someone was driving at 40mph through Hugh Town," says Sgt Craig, "we would clock it and say it might not be illegal but it is not a considerate way to drive."
The Scilly Isles may have a speed camera, but it's nice to know that they don't need sleeping policemen.
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