Car-makers should focus on safety and substance, not speed and style

INSTEAD of heaping all the blame for road carnage on drivers, why doesn’t Transport Minister Martin Cullen and all the other relevant agencies actually address the main cause of road slaughter — totally inadequate and incompetent motor vehicle design.

We are all driving around in extremely expensive, highly dangerous tin cans that fold on impact. One look at the disturbing photographs of mangled wrecks (Irish Examiner, July 12) should be enough to prove my point. Yet the penny doesn’t seem to have dropped where it should have long before now.

It’s high time the onus to solve our road carnage plague was placed where it belongs — with car designers and the companies who employ them. Let them forget style, speed and turbo-charged death machines and design vehicles that won’t crumble and kill on impact.

If a Formula 1 driver crashes at a speed of 150-180mph, he can reasonably expect to walk away with a few cuts and bruises.

If Mr and Mrs Everybody and family crash at 40-60mph in a run-of-the-mill model, they can expect to die or be horribly maimed. Doesn’t really make sense, does it?

Tom Fitzgerald

Four Roads

Askeaton

Co Limerick