Sir, – Following on from Emma McAuley's observation (January 4th ) that a significant percentage of Irish drivers on motorways choose to drive in the middle lane, one could conclude that we are a nation of "middle of the roaders".
However, the truth is that we have a large number of drivers who don’t fully know the rules of the road. Many started driving when Ireland had little or no motorways. One would also wonder whether driving tests adequately covered this issue over the years. One could broaden the topic to include drivers understanding of the rules applicable to roundabouts, cycle lanes, junctions, etc.
Ultimately there is an argument to have every driver sit a driving test every few years, say every ten years. They should have to do a driving refresher course in order to sit the test.
After all, we have NCTs for cars and yet we assume that someone who learned to drive 20, 40 or 60 years ago knows how to drive in today’s world. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN CULLEN,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.