REGARDING the new alcohol limits, we have become so obsessed with drink-driving that common sense has been replaced by urban myths.

THE Rules of the Road claims that pedestrians are “extremely difficult to see”, but makes no such claim for cars.

I THINK the idea of adding images to cigarette packs showing the effect of smoking is a good idea.

IT may only be semantics but for Noel Brett of the RSA to say that Irish roads are the “sixth safest” rather than the “sixth least dangerous” he is encouraging complacency, which he warns against. Roads are extremely dangerous.

THE HSE claims that cigarettes kill one in every two smokers, based on the statistic that half of smokers die from smoking-related disease.

MICHAEL JOB (June 11) asks how American military cadets can help Irish students in engineering.

PAUL O’RIAIN writes claiming tax on diesel and petrol is driving inflation up.

IT is reported that road hauliers are threatening to “withdraw their services” unless the government bales them out from rising fuel costs.

IRELAND’S kidney transplant charity says that government plans for an “opt-out” system, having organs “donated automatically” is unworkable, but not immoral.

REGARDING the 50% rise in road deaths so far this year, the RSA and the gardaí are quick to take credit for falls in traffic casualties, so shouldn’t they be accepting the blame for increases? To blame complacent parents is a calumny.

THE news that Bord Gais are to invest €2 million in tidal energy is welcome.

THE electricity grid always copes with huge variations in demand, depending on time of day, weather and other factors, by keeping a proportion of generation as spinning reserve which can accept load in seconds and starting up additional plant as required.

WITH the season for buying new cars upon us, we are being bombarded with an irritating endless stream of television and radio car adverts.

JERRY KIERSEY writes saying that the €23 million given by Ireland in foreign aid should have been used to subsidise rape (colza) for biofuel. One of the main reasons for famine in the Third World is the recent tripling in the price of cereals due to them being used for subsidised biofuels.

YOU report that the IFA and the Friends of Earth have different views of the proposed climate change bill.

WHAT use are mobile speed cameras if the vans are marked and the gardaí publish their locations?

YOUR headline ‘Five lives lost on blackspot’ (November 11) highlights the belief that drivers are not to blame for crashes that occur at these locations.

IN his letter (September 13), Michael Job says, perceptively, that opposition to the Corrib gas pipeline, like opposition to nuclear power and wind farms, seems to be based on ignorance, superstition and mythology.

MICHAEL Job’s misguided and somewhat inaccurate letter (July 24) requires clarification.

MYLES Duffy is right (‘Vintners pathetic attempt to discredit new drink-driving limit’, Letters, July 12).

WHO do Transport Minister Noel Dempsey and the RSA think they can kid by claiming compulsory driving lessons would have prevented the Donegal crash which killed eight people?

WE read a great deal about the need for a new political party in the Republic.

A FORMIDABLE list of Kerry luminaries wrote to you (Letters, June 21) claiming eagles have not been poisoned deliberately there.

ACCORDING to Eileen McCarthy of Arup (Irish Examiner, July 9), the Cork-Limerick motorway will save 70 lives over a 30-year period, based on 35 fatalities in 20 years on the roads which it would replace. But this simplistic calculation works out to 52.5 lives saved, not 70, and assumes no one will be killed on the motorway.

MICHAEL Job’s letter (June 14) is wildly inaccurate and attributes figures to the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) that we did not issue.

MICHAEL Job complains about cyclists being mistreated by motorists (Letters, May 13). Pedestrians also have a complaint about cycling on footpaths. Some of these pedal fanatics race around as if they were in the Tour de France. Why don’t they walk if they want to exercise?

SEÁN McGovern (Letters, May 22) claims that because one animal rights activist resorts to terrorism, all are terrorists and he defends animal cruelty by abusing those who oppose it.

VERA Treacy (Letters, May 15) raises the issue of poisoning rodents.

IS Michael Job (Letters, April 19) suggesting pedestrians can walk willy-nilly on the roads with no responsibility for their own safety. I suggest Mr Job consult the Rules of the Road under the section Pedestrians and find out exactly what his responsibilites are.

THE British scrappage scheme subsidising the purchase of 330,000 cars by £2,000 is claimed to have supported 4,000 jobs.

IN his letter (April 5), Michael Job says Enda Kenny’s call to abolish the €10 air travel tax is “crude populism”.

THE Irish Coursing Club is offering €20,000 for information “leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the injury and suffering caused to a hare”.

WITH reference to Michael Job’s letter (March 22) about the introduction of regulations for medical testing in order to obtain a HGV licence, there is such a test in place and it includes an eye test.

IT is outrageous that a lorry driver who killed a man on a pedestrian crossing and was convicted recently of dangerous driving was allowed to drive a lorry for a living when he was blind in one eye from birth; this would have restricted his angle of vision and made stereoscopic sight impossible.

IN her letter (March 9), Marian O’Mullane says her daughter had to pay Ryanair €470 for travelling with 10kg excess baggage.

YOU report (February 16) that a proposed wind farm “could produce enough energy to power 59,000 homes”.

EVEN Sir Richard Branson now accepts the reality of peak oil which he refers to as the “oil crunch”, saying it is “just five years away”.

IF scrappage for cars is such a good idea, why not for houses — cash to demolish badly insulated houses and build new ones?

MY first instinct on reading Prof Sven Carlsen’s recently-published ‘research’, which absurdly concludes that formula milk is as good as breast milk, was to find out who paid for the research.

IT is misleading for Michael O’Leary to claim Ryanair will impose a €100 “fine” on passengers who have not printed their boarding passes (November 9).

SO Europe’s environment ministers have agreed to cut carbon emissions by 95% by 2050.

CLAIMS that trespassers are being protected by ridiculous laws is untrue. There is the valid defence of “lawful excuse” for anyone defending a person or property by the use of “reasonable force”, which means reasonable under the circumstances.

MICHAEL JOB (Letters, September 15) appears to have little or no difficulty mixing alcohol and driving.