Although the journey initially involves driving on the M50 and another national motorway, most of the trip is on a road with an 80kph speed limit. The experience is always depressingly enlightening in relation to our driving behaviour.

Conscious of the recommendations of those with responsibility for road safety, I endeavour to keep to the speed limit. That, I fear, is regarded by many road users as being only for fuddy-duddies. On the motorways people whizz past at speeds well above the limit. But it is on the 80kph roads that the real action takes place.

A succession of grim graduates of the arrogance-willget-you-everywhere school of human relations, having first tailgated you, will then pass you out, often on continuous white lines or at junctions, at speeds way over the limit.

A depressingly high proportion of these dedicated disciples of the god of speed are oblivious to the recent change in the law involving the use of handheld mobile phones. To say that they display nothing but contempt for other road users is inadequate. What makes this behaviour even more reprehensible is the fact that along these roads all of us pass monuments to obviously fatal and often recent accidents with fresh flowers occasionally beside them.

A Leavy, 1 Shielmartin Drive, Sutton, Dublin 13.