Karl Soler perceives disagreement with the contents of his letters only as representing “personal attacks” and “attempts at discrediting him” but he fails disappointingly to argue his point of view. Apart from banishing pedestrians and bicycles from our roads, it is impossible to discern what his agenda is all about (April 6).

Attention was drawn to an earlier letter in which he inexplicably seemed to defend drink-driving by praising our traffic policymakers for not introducing random alcohol testing and arbitrary thresholds because “the great majority (two thirds in various countries) of fatal road accidents are not alcohol related”.

Secondly, Soler expressed smug satisfaction with a recent court acquittal of a vehicle driver, because it “confirmed that pedestrians must take care on our roads in order to avoid being partly or fully culpable for an accident”.

Thirdly under the pretence of responding to perceived “continued attacks on Maltese drivers”, Soler tediously repeats his mantra yet again that “cycling is becoming more dangerous in Holland”. Maybe Soler can define his position on these matters.

More specifically, can he clarify  the following in plain language: why he is  against  lowering  of the maximum permissible alcohol blood concent-ration  from 80mg/dl to the safer and widely accepted level of 50mg/dl in vehicle drivers; does he  favour a soft attitude to traffic contraventions; is he in favour of negligible compensation to road traffic victims; and can he please inform us clearly as to the purpose of his repeated attempts at misleading readers into believing that cycling is ‘dangerous’  in Holland  by quoting out-of-context,  cherry-picked data?

The only conclusions that can be drawn from his letters are that he would like to persuade readers that people should be allowed to drive on the road under the influence of alcohol without being monitored  by the police, that the maximum permissible blood alcohol concentration should not be lowered to 50mg/dl,   that pedestrians are second-class road-users whose safety and lives only deserve  low priority  and that bicycle commuters are also second-class road users who should not  be allowed on our roads.

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