Sir, – The report "Road Safety Authority says 42% of those killed in vehicles not wearing seat belts" (January 2nd) is numerically inaccurate and misleading.
What your reporter seems to have done is to add the percentage of drivers not wearing seat belts (16 per cent) to the percentage of passengers not wearing seat belts (26 per cent) to get 42 per cent. Basic arithmetic would say that you should add the numbers in each category to get 23/118 or 19 per cent, a less dramatic figure but a true representation of the percentage of vehicle fatalities not wearing seat belts.
What you published is equivalent to saying if 50 per cent of men read The Irish Times and 50 per cent of women also read The Irish Times, then 100 per cent of the total population read it. – Yours, etc,
TOM FULLER,
Glasnevin,
Dublin.