Sir, - Last month my husband and I were returning from a visit to Donabate in North Dublin. As part of our journey, we needed to make a right-hand turn northwards onto the Dublin-Belfast road. The junction we had to negotiate to get onto the dual carrigeway was just another frightening example of poor road design: limited road markings, a high volume of cars turning across the carriageway against a higher volume of fast-moving traffic - and no traffic lights.
It frightens me to read about the number of road accidents caused by poor road engineering. Even our new motorways appear to have sub-standard safety design - exits on bends, exits too close to entrances, no central reservation barriers, to name some examples. Why don't our motorways follow the same standards of safety engineering as other European countries?
The Government needs to eliminate the known hazard spots on our road - either by re-engineering them, or at an absolute minimum, by very clear use of signposting. Until then, it is hypocritical of the Government to refer to the vehicle crashes caused by poor road design as "accidents". They are consequences, pure and simple. - Yours, etc.,
Susan McKeever, Cherryfield Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.