Sir, - Well, apart from reporting that I no longer shave in the car, due to there being nowhere in modern vehicles to hang the strop; that the last fairy in the bottom of my garden was shot, by myself, more than twenty years ago; and that if Mr Logue were to offer me a lift, I should insist on travelling in the boot; the only really worthwhile nugget to be salvaged from this sorry correspondence comes from Ms Beckett. She quotes the familiar myth, perpetuated by insurance companies, that women are safer drivers than men.
These, we must remember, are the same august institutions choose to assume that journalists, for example, constitute a menace on the road, and, speaking from personal experience, refuse to accept the hitherto irrefutable fact that my undergoing, and passing, an advanced driving test could possibly make me into a slightly safer driver, to be reflected in a reduced premium. Oh no, sir, our `policy structures' are not geared to take this into account.
The "women/safer drivers" myth stems from the custom "whereby most ladies, on obtaining their first provisional licence, become insured as named drivers on their husbands policies, a decision facilitated by the insurance companies themselves, who make it more financially attractive to do things this way. Then, when the little woman has her first tip, as invariably she will, it is recorded as an accident on Joe Bloggs's policy, not Mary Bloggs. Disraeli must have had insurance companies in mind when he coined the immortal phrase: "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"!
Me? Surprisingly to those who choose to consider me a misogynist (oh! the hurt!), I subscribe to the belief that, given the same standard of training, there can be a negligible difference betwixt male and female drivers. But therein lies the rub when, oh when, is Ireland going to come level with the rest of the EU (and, indeed, the world) and introduce mandatory standards for the instruction of driving skills? As things stand, anyone with a full driving licence can open a driving school and pass on bad tuition to unsuspecting, fee paying pupils - a ludicrous situation, the dubious results of which can be seen on Irish roads every day of the week. - Yours, etc.,
Dublin 3.