Sir, - Oh how I sympathise with Jennifer Wann (letters, October 15th) and her nine Murphy's Law rules of the road for drivers.
There's a war going, on out on our streets. Often, it is a mental war raging in a solitary driver's head (visible signs, are an easily recognised mouthing of obscenities through the closed car window) this is a common species.
The rarer (but breeding fast) and highly dangerous species is the (commonly, but not exclusively), male who drives his vehicle as if he were taking part in a competition for the greatest possible number of road traffic infringements in any given stretch of a city centre street. Jennifer Wann has alluded to many of these in her sharply ironic letter.
On the face of it, the image of angry and immature men bullying their way across the city has a pure element of farce about it, but people get injured and sometimes killed by these dangerously impatient drivers. There is nothing farcical about that, and it is happening every day on our streets. I used to enjoy cycling in Dublin, but now I mount my bicycle in the mornings with a sense of fear and trepidation. I imagine I am not alone in experiencing such feelings.
The other sad aspect to all this is that cyclists and pedestrians alike, be cause they have been so badly served by our road engineers street planners and city authorities in general, have long since become equally impatient (anyone who regularly crosses at the pedestrian lights on College Green will know what I mean) and have developed their own strategy. Thus, few pedestrians wait for the green signal to cross and many cyclists show scant regard for the rules of the road.
As for the bicycle couriers, it appears that they have learned how to alienate drivers, fellow cyclists and pedestrians alike through their own particular brand of rude and aggressive behaviour. I suppose they have a point, though. Why cycle on the street when you can cycle on the footpath? - Yours, etc.,
Iveagh Flats, Bull Alley Street, Dublin 8.