Motoring organisations warn of kids with skin problems

The AA and RAC are leading a campaign to reduce the high incidence of children with eczema and other infections close to main roads.

Many members have written in complaining about the sight of hideously marked sick children while sat in traffic jams or when broken down.

"It is intolerable that taxpaying motorists should have to view disfigured kids," harrumphed a let's-go-for-a-spin doctor from the RAC. "Twenty years ago there wasn't this trouble. We're told its because those children that live near roads pick up allergies from the traffic fumes, but that's no comfort when one of them wanders past a member in his car when he wasn't expecting it."

Some drivers have said that they find the sight of some kids' disease-ridden features on their regular routes so off-putting that they arrive at work in foul moods.

Holding up figures from TwoBob University, an AA spokesman pointed out that children living close to major roads are twice as likely to have serious eczema and that numbers have increased substantially over the past 30 years.

"If it wasn't bad enough that these kids' lives are ruined, now we have the situation where innocent motorists are being adversely affected," he roared. "This has to end."

The motoring organisations are currently lobbying Parliament for a change in the law that will seen all children that live within 50 metres of a main road forced to cover their face with a Michael Jackson-style veil when outside. They are also arguing for the construction of five-foot fences alongside all new roads to protect motorists from catching a glimpse of a malformed misfit.

In the meantime, the RAC and AA have advised members to look straight ahead when in traffic and to stay close to their car if they breakdown. "It's commonsense but you'd be surprised how many people don't do it," says the spokesjack.