Saving money or saving lives?

Dear sir - Your editorial of last week ( Meath Chronicle, 10th January), says: 'It was most encouraging to hear Meath County Manager Tom Dowling say this week that, when it comes to road safety, there will be 'no scrimping" and that whatever resources are needed to reduce accidents and improve safety will be provided, notwithstanding the strained economic times in which local authority budgets are under severe pressure.' One item of road safety that the County Council has been scrimping on in recent times has been road markings on our county roads. This has been brought up at numerous meetings of the council, and long before there was any talk of 'strained economic times" the council was playing the poor mouth on this issue. I would ask any of our engineers, or indeed the county manager, to drive on a county road without road markings on a night of a very bad fog, and see how easy it is. The advantage of road markings is that you can actually see the road on front of you. A fine job was done recently repainting the N3 marking after roadworks. It is a pity this cannot be extended to other secondary roads. Two which spring to mind, which this writer had to attempt to drive on in bad fogs, were from Garlow Cross to Scurlogstown, via Bellinter and Bective, and the road from Ross Cross to Battlejohn Cross, via Dunsany. It is very dangerous and there doesn"t seem to be any reason for not marking the roads. Is it a case of saving money or saving lives? Yours, Tom McKenna, Tara.