Sir, - Recently your popular and very important Letters page dealt with the contentious subject of roundabouts. As is often the case, the bould Kevin Myers was at the heart of it! I have no argument with his views about roundabouts and motorways, but I was much more interested in the letter of September 10th and its reference to Denmark's intention to re-introduce roundabouts: So should we.
The city centre, as in any city, is choked with traffic, for the past few years and this congestion has spread to the suburbs. Why? More and more of suburban junctions are having traffic signals installed. At the least sign of congestion up go the lights. This is the horse-and-cart mentality at work again. This congestion occurs only twice a day at morning and evening peak hours. Traffic lights operate 24 hours a day.
Have any of your readers ever seen suburban traffic go through a roundabout at high speed? Traffic lights, particularly when they are green, are an incentive to "put the foot down"; stand at any such junction and see for yourself. Our planners have created a recipe for road collisions.
Roundabouts are a cheap and efficient means of slowing traffic down. Traffic lights are an expensive and dangerous way of stopping traffic, in many cases unnecessarily. - Yours, etc.,
Simon Cullen, Birchview Heights, Kilnamanagh, Dublin 24.