Madam, - John Griffin builds straw men in his defence of SUVs - straw men which are presumably easier to knock down if you have bull bars on the front of your car.
Most SUVs do not carry four golfers. Most do not tow anything. And what sort of climate does he think we live in if he needs a massive gas-guzzling behemoth in case of "occasional rough conditions"? Most SUVs never leave their suburban homes. The most that many of them will carry is two adults and a child or two from home to school to office and back to school. In an urban setting, there should be penalties for those who use vehicles designed to cross streams in the Canadian Rockies to take their kids to school.
It is a truth that no politician will voice, but many people on the Irish roads simply do not have the driving skills to pilot the one-litre Micra which John Griffin cites in his letter, never mind a massive, four-wheel drive, off-road vehicle. As an amateur runner around the streets and parks of Dublin, I come into contact (sometimes literally) with enormous 4X4s driven by people who just cannot handle them, sometimes by people who cannot see over the steering wheel.
Those who wish to drive large four-wheel-drive vehicles in a city should pay much higher rates of taxation. If they can afford the vehicle and the fuel, they can surely afford to pay more tax. - Yours, etc,
JIM PUGH, Annavilla, Dublin 6.
Madam, - We really shouldn't be surprised at the popularity of SUVs. City planners have erected miniature brick walls in the middle of so many critical urban routes. They call these "speed bumps", but they might as well call them speed walls - most of them are made out of red brick, after all.
Negotiating these obstacles can cause significant damage to private cars and is painful for anyone with back problems. - Yours, etc,
TADHG O'BRIEN, Greystones, Co Wicklow.