Blaming Senior Citizens

In his column of May 8, Dick Turpin cited Robert Morris, the executive president of the San Diego Building Industry Assn., as saying that teen-agers and seniors are the real “culprits” responsible for traffic congestion. According to Webster’s, the word culprit means “one accused of a crime,” or “one guilty of a crime.” I, for one, resent the use of the word.

Should senior citizens be condemned to starvation because they cannot carry their groceries home from the market? Would taking a cab reduce the number of cars on the streets? Should senior citizens sit at home in a rocking chair when they could be warding off arthritis and heart disease by swimming in the neighborhood YMCA pool?

Or should I, as a senior citizen, say to my friends, “Let’s vote for all slow-growth measures. Let’s vote against funding new highways and sewers on the ground that developers will only clog them up as soon as they are in place”? I could recommend such a strategy, but I won’t--because extreme statements never solve problems; they merely show the speaker’s prejudices.

MARGARET W. ROMANI

Los Angeles