Madam, - Vincent Caulfield of the IRHA (January 31st) is correct in pointing out the negligent failure of the Minister for Transport to make the fitting of convex mirrors to large trucks mandatory.
Equally, I agree that the €100 cost of fitting a convex mirror is "nothing when you consider it saves lives". Why, then, have so few hauliers fitted such mirrors ? Clearly that €100 price tag is bit of stumbling block for his members.
Other factors which could possibly explain the the haulage industry's outstanding contribution to road deaths is its endemic speeding, overloading, parking of HGVs in residential areas, mobile phone usage and the poor state of repair of haulage vehicles (26.3 per cent of Irish HGVs and 45 per cent of trailers failed roadside mechanical tests in Britain when checked in 2003-04).
While no doubt every industry is motivated by profit, surely none kills as many innocent people in pursuit of that aim as the haulage industry. Goods vehicles account for 25 per cent of all road deaths each year. In 2005 HGVs accounted for 50 per cent of cyclist deaths nationally and 100 per cent in Dublin.
It is fundamentally unsafe to allow huge HGVs to drive through Dublin city centre. Yet the IRHA continues to demand that supertrucks be allowed to go to the port tunnel via the city centre. Indeed the IRHA's call for a system of "self-imposed curfews" is a recipe for a trucker's "free-for-all" in the city centre. - Yours, etc,
DAVID MAHER,
PRO,
Irish Cycling Campaign,
Millmount Grove,
Windy Arbour,
Dublin 14.