Dear Editors,

What must it be like for a mother when a police officer calls to tell her that her husband and two young daughters have just died in a road accident?

I asked myself this on reading the article, "Driver held after three die in crash", in Monday's Daily Telegraph, and quickly realised that, quite literally, it did not bear thinking about.

Perhaps, it occurs to me, that is one of the reasons why we allow the killing on our roads to continue: more than three thousand deaths a year in Britain, over 40 thousand in the EU, a similar number in the US, and an estimated one million world-wide.

When we read about ancient peoples' who made human sacrifices to their gods, we are horrified by their cruelty and inhumanity, but then put it down to their primitiveness and ignorance, thankful (and perhaps a little arrogant) that we live in times that are so much more civilised and humane.

However, there is a very strong case, I believe, for considering the vast majority of road deaths as human sacrifices to the God of Automobility, and suggest that we build a temple (or temples) to It, where people can give more structured religious expression, in praise of automobility and remembrance to all those who have been sacrificed to it.

I imagine such a temple having a fountain at its centre, gushing blood-coloured liquid at a rate corresponding to the amount shed on our roads (in Britain, Europe, the US or wherever, or even the whole world). There should also be a computer terminal with a continuously up-dated list and information about those who have been sacrificed, going back as far as possible, so that the course and scale of the slaughter becomes clear. There should also be a room showing actual video footage of the immediate aftermath of serious road accidents, of mangled and bleeding bodies, and acted scenes and screams of the dying and bereaved (including perhaps the portrayal of a mother, father, sister, brother, or grandparent, being informed of the death of a loved one, or having to identify their torn and broken bodies at the morgue; and later, when the initial shock has past, a priest consoling them, explaining the purpose and worthiness of their sacrifice for the noble cause of freedom of the roads and everyone's right to individual automobility). Another room should provide video and other material explaining the other costs of the car and individual automobility, to the quality of life in our cities, towns, villages and countryside, and to coming generations, because of the natural resources we are squandering on the construction and running of cars, its effects on the atmosphere and global climate. And yet another room should show examples - real and imagined - of a car(e)free society, or at least, of a society where cars are put in their proper place, serving rational, humane and sustainable purposes, rather than man's pig-headed stupidity.

Perhaps you would like to join me in announcing an appeal for donations - for a temple to the God of Automobility.

Yours, not just ironically, but also quite seriously (as a way of raising awareness of the horrendous costs of cars)

Roger Hicks