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"My son died and other people's sons will die. I am absolutely appalled that no-one is doing anything about it."

Lorraine Bristow, Buckinghamshire

Lorraine Bristow is fed up with drivers using the country lane running through her village as a rat run.

The lane is a short cut between the M40 and the M25. During the rush hour she says it's a nightmare.

"We have people using our little road as a cut through from one motorway to another, so our children are forced into the hedge.

I don't think the drivers care. They may be parents themselves but when they're driving, trying to make up the time to get to a meeting on time, I think they're only thinking about themselves."

My son died

And Lorraine feels particularly strongly because she lost her son in a road traffic accident three years ago.

"My son was run down on a lane similar to this one where they had been campaigning for some time to get a 30mph limit and they had been ignored," she says.

It's not just a problem for those living on country lanes. Rat runs blight the inner city, too.

In Bootle, Merseyside, Paul Cooke says his local estate is plagued by rat runners - and it's now impossible for children to walk safely to school.

"I don't think we should be waiting for a fatality on the road," says Paul. "It's a disgrace for us to have to wait for someone from this community to be killed before they'll look at it."

The campaign group Transport 2000 estimates that there could be around 5,000 kilometres of minor residential and other roads used as rat runs in the UK.

And the problem is getting worse as congestion on main roads worsens.

Driver oblivion

Julia Samson, the group's Streets for People Co-ordinator, explains: "Drivers who hunt down less congested short cuts through areas of housing are often oblivious to the impact they are having.

What were once quiet residential streets are now the equivalent of main roads, with the added danger, noise and pollution that this brings.

The result is that children are not allowed to play outside, neighbours do not stand and chat, and the desire to walk to the local shop is taken away."

Communities often feel helpless to do something about a rat run problem.

Rat running can be tackled by speed restrictions, traffic calming, weight restrictions and even closing off streets to through traffic - but councils are often reluctant to act.

So now Transport 2000 has launched a campaign to find Britain's worst rat run.

The community with the 'winning' rat run, due to be announced in July, will receive a two-day package of consultancy work to find solutions to the problem.

Transport planners will come up with traffic calming measure and costings to put to the local council.

"This competition wants to highlight that something can be done and that there are solutions," says Julie Samson.

Watch the Your Politics report on "Rat Runs"

What you can do:

To enter Transport 2000's rat run competition, you can phone Julia Samson on 020 7613 0743 extn 124.

Application form and more details are available from the Transport 2000 website at: http://www.transport2000.org.uk

You sent us your comments on this story.

Our son died on Gwaun Miskin Road, Beddau, Nr Pontypridd sixteen years ago. The road has become even more dangerous with cars speeding up to at least seventy miles per hour in a 30 mph area. Probably nothing will be done until somebody else loses a much loved family member.
e.wright, Wales

So many "Rat Runs" and I submit Balham Park Road, SW12 as one of them. There is also a school which causes traffic jams. Traffic wardens and Police make themselves scarce at that time. Better to catch somebody who has a car causing no trouble, but in a position where it is committing an offence. That way there is no confrontation.
Frank Richins, England

In recent years huge sums of money have been spent on defacing our environment with red and white striped tarmac, huge yellow speed limit signs, etc. Traditional speed limit signs, and a small amount of common sense and consideration, are all that is needed to make people drive reasonably safely in residential areas: if the money wasted on these hideous eyesores was put into policing safe driving in these areas instead, maybe the dangerous habits of car drivers would be reduced.
Simon, U.K,

You may get better response from drivers if you stop characterising us indiscriminately as rats. In the past ten years we have been generically labelled as child-killers, planet-poisoners, resource thieves, and self-centred maniacs, as well as being used as bottomless wells of money for politicians to grab; now we are "rats" when we try to avoid the congested routes we are blamed for creating. Most car drivers are ordinary decent citizens who DO drive responsibly and don't carve up the countryside, and we are far more law-abiding than cyclists and motor-cyclists. This is not the attitude to be expected of an impartial organisation such as the BBC is supposed to be.
John Peat, Coventry, UK