Sir, - Letters appear in The Irish Times with considerable frequency under the heading, "Death On The Roads". The summary of Charlie McCreevy's capital spending plans for 1999 (The Irish Times, November 12th) provides the answer as to why the toll for death and injury is so severe: any attempt to divert people and goods on to safer and more environmentally friendly forms of transport chalks up as follows: Roads spending £645.8 million (including motor tax revenue); buses and rail £90 million. Roughly 85:15 in favour of road improvements.
Every other North European country has learnt that spending money on roads in favour of other forms of transport is a short-term fix with highly unsatisfactory long-term results. Why is Ireland determined to find out the same thing the hard way, instead of benefiting from the experience of others? The only answer to traffic jams is to reduce traffic, not encourage more of it. Put in all the speeding restrictions, governors, road humps and bypasses you want. Traffic kills; more traffic kills more.
And if you seriously believe that vehicles can actually be made to avoid collisions, what about this: the Department of Health in Britain estimates 24,000 deaths a year from traffic pollution. Benzene in petrol is now linked to the increased incidence of leukaemia, and one constituent of diesel exhaust registers the highest ever score on the Ames test, which measures the likelihood of a chemical causing cancer. Any of that £645 million going towards the cost of that little lot, Mr McCreevy? - Yours, etc., Dominic Miles,
Ballyogan, Graiguenamanagh, Co Kilkenny.