Sir – There seems to be a trend emerging on your letters page from various corespondents in relation to cycling. In the last number of months a significant number of negative letters have been published regarding cyclists and bells, breaking red lights, and the audacity of one local authority to provide safe cycling infrastructure.
Where is the alarm with regards to drivers?
According the the Road Safety Authority data, in 2019 drivers killed 27 pedestrians and eight cyclists.
Drivers contribute pollution which, according the Environmental Protection Agency, is responsible for 1,180 excess deaths per year.
Drivers tend to feel entitled to abandon their vehicles on footpaths as they spend “just a minute” at the shops with no regard to those pushing prams or those who are disabled.
I have yet to meet a cyclist who defends bad behaviour in other cyclists.
Yet whenever I try to bring up the above points with regards to driver behaviour, it is met with anecdote upon anecdote of how one time a cyclist broke a red light at an empty junction without a helmet or insurance and not a cent paid in so-called “road tax”. – Yours, etc,
JOHN LEGGE,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.