Sir, – Brendan Lynch proposes (Letters, February 14th) that pedestrians should be encouraged – or required – to look where they are going.
While I feel for his wife, knocked off her bike by a careless pedestrian using a mobile phone, and wish her a speedy recovery from her injuries, I would like to propose an alternative solution to the problem described by Mr Lynch of cyclists being knocked off their bikes by people who step out in front of them unexpectedly: what we need in urban areas are far more streets with 30km/h speed limits.
These are very common throughout Europe (more than 80 per cent of roads in Munich have 30km/h limits, for example), but significantly under-used in Ireland.
In 30km/h zones, cyclists are not forced into the gutter by speeding drivers and can accordingly give pedestrians a suitably wide berth.
In a culture in which motorists are not moving at warp speed, they can look out for other road users and give them space.
Conflicts between all road users are consequently reduced and their consequences greatly mitigated.
In such an inclusive urban environment, everybody could safely be a pedestrian: not just responsible adults who have been issued with hi-vis vests by the RSA as per current practice and with warning letters by their mobile phone companies as proposed by Mr Lynch, but also children.
The imposition of 30km/h speed limits could help to create a healthy society, one in which everybody had access to the public realm.
The Jake’s Legacy protest outside Leinster House today, which calls for safer speed-limit zones in residential and other built-up areas in towns and cities, deserves the full support of everybody interested in building a healthier and happier Ireland. – Yours, etc, SARAH SWIFT 96049 Bamberg, Germany.