Sir, - Your front-page picture (The Irish Times, September 20th) of the Kinnegad accident scene gives a clue to one of the most hazardous oversights of road management in Ireland.
I speak of the wasteful practice of reserving valuable road space for hard shoulders. By combining this under-used space from both sides of a narrow highway, we could easily make a functioning third lane for overtaking - the direction of which we can safely alternate with road markings, say every three to five miles.
Thus, a driver who is hemmed in behind a convoy of slowpokes knows that he will soon get a chance to safely overtake, rather than be tempted to engage in the dare-devil weaving that is currently the norm.
This system is widely used on state highways in the US, where the third lane usually favours the traffic. The Watergrasshill section of the Cork-Dublin road is the only example I know of in Ireland; it works a treat. By contrast, look at the hard shoulder area squandered on the new constructed Roscrea and Nenagh bypasses. - Yours, etc.,
Tom O'Connor, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14.