6 JUNE 1952, Page 16

Silencers and Speed SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. B. D. Spencer, asks

you to press for legislation to compel young motor-cyclists to use silencers. It is already illegal to drive a motor vehicle with an ineffective silencer. And what is more, on July 19th, 1934, I moved,an amendment to the

Road Traffic Act in the House of Lords io render it illegal to supply, such a vehicle—and carried it against the Government of the day. (Before then the user of a car or cycle with an illegal silencer had merely to satisfy the court, when charged, that he had purchased the standard product of a well-known firm to be able to count on acquittal.) But I remember reflecting in 1934 that it is one thing to carry an amendment and quite another to see it enforced:—Yours faithfully, ELTON. Adderbury, Near Banbury, Oxford.