Sir, - The Saturday magazine and other supplements make The Irish Times the best value-for-money newspaper in the country.
Last Tuesday's motoring supplement was particularly impressive. However, being the Victor Meldrew of road safety, I was not too impressed with the article on page 13.
Despite Mr Faughnan's array of facts, there was not one reference to the greatest killer on our roads: ignorance. The facts are simple and I find it astonishing that they were overlooked. We do not have registered driving schools or any structure of training or testing of driving instructors, so anyone with a full (not necessarily clean) driving licence can call themselves a driving instructor or indeed open a "driving school". Unlike the UK, and I am sure most of Europe, there are no Government controls whatsoever.
Consequently there are thousands of people on our roads who do not know how to drive; they paid for driving lessons but were shown, not taught, how to drive.
If ever there was a justified reason for using the Government jet it would be to take the Minister, Mr Molloy, to a country like Germany to see for himself the difference in approach and attitude to driver education. It is never too late to learn, particularly when so much is at stake. - Yours, etc.,
Simon Cullen, Birchview Heights, Kilnamanagh, Dublin 24.