Sir, – As a candidate for your "New to the Parish" series (a blow-in who arrived from the UK in June 1969), I should like to ask Emma McAuley (January 4th) precisely which network of UK roads she was driving on.
Having returned to the UK on the Holyhead ferry on numerous occasions to drive to Suffolk and back, my experience is that in the so-called slow lane, you are likely to be sandwiched between two 40-ton lorries driving at 60 mph, meaning that I tend to use the safety of the middle lane driving at the limit of 70 mph, which further means that all vehicles passing me on the fast lane (ie all of them) are inevitably exceeding the speed limit.
The only manoeuvre of these drivers returning to the slow lane is to wait until the last minute before veering across in front of you to the next exit slip-road.
Furthermore, I have found the majority of Irish drivers here will wave or flash their lights if you show them a courtesy and vice versa, whereas in the UK, upon observing my Irish number plate, I receive a totally different hand signal which is not in the road usage manual. – Yours, etc,
JOHN RISELEY,
Killiney ,
Co Dublin.