Sir, - I awoke on Sunday morning hear of yet more deaths on our roads. What made the weekend's events particularly striking to me personally was that one of the previous night's accidents (in which four people were killed) occurred on a stretch of road which I travel daily, not 10 minutes' drive from my home. Not surprisingly, it appears that speed was a significant factor in that particular accident, and in the other accidents over the weekend.
One other image came to mind on hearing this news - that of the Taoiseach making what can only be described as flippant remarks at a press conference last week when reference was made to an incident involving speed and a car allocated to one of his Ministers.
Typically, this appeared to have been overlooked by the Opposition, who used the incident not to raise public awareness of this serious problem, but rather to make some cheap political capital.
How can anyone be expected to take seriously the campaign to portray speeding as a vice, just as socially unacceptable as drink-driving, when this is the response from our elected representatives? - Yours, etc.,
Sean Bellew BL, Upper Faughart, Dundalk, Co Louth.