fairly close check on noisy vehicles, especially cycles, but we no longer seem to pay much attention to noise on the roads. However the Environment Minister has now promised to pay attention to car and cycle exhaust emissions. He promises tough new laws to cut down on pollution including the importing of cars with catalytic converters.

The Environment Minister himself has been quoted as saying, "The idea is to reach European Union and United States Standards on exhaust emissions. It all means we will need to introduce cars with catalytic converters because right now there are 25 times more pollutants in our atmosphere than in the US, Japan or Europe.'' While we are in favour of anything which improves the environment we do think the Minister is approaching the car problem from the wrong direction. He should be looking at phasing out cars with combustion engines and phasing in electric cars.

Once extremely experimental, the electric car is beginning to be a reality in the United States, especially California. It is both clean and quiet.

Batteries to power these cars are becoming smaller and longer lasting and the cars themselves are entering production. Right now they are expensive but like most new things they will start high but the price will undoubtedly come down.

Both the Ministry of the Environment and the Transport Ministry should be studying how to best use these cars in Bermuda. It seems to us that Bermuda is an ideal places for manufacturers to try these cars in practical use and the ministries should be encouraging that kind of experiment.

The electric cars are often thought to be impractical in the United States because of the difficulty of recharging batteries on long trips. Bermuda has no long trips. The cars are generally smaller than those in use in the United States which presents a problem but Bermuda specialises in small cars and the smaller the better.

What Bermuda needs is someone with the guts to stand up to the motor car lobby and get on with doing what is right for Bermuda. Ann Cartwright DeCouto was that kind of Environment Minister, just look what she did for the fish, and maybe she could return and take care of the roads.

While this may be critical of the current Minister we have to remember his Shadow Minister's recent advocacy of a new purpose built airport to replace one on which we have just spent huge sums of money and also his suggestion that we should be looking at locations in Bermuda to dig tunnels like those in New York and London to ease the traffic problem, never mind the billions that would cost taxpayers.