I have observed complaints in your letters page that the law favours cyclists, a subset of whom are not sufficiently careful on the roads.
The motorists who complain thus aren’t alone in wanting a change to the law. Surely it’s time something was done to discourage the abuse suffered by cyclists from occupants of motorised vehicles as they (often inappropriately) overtake them.
If a cyclist has no lights on their bike, yelling abuse or honking your horn isn’t a practical way of dealing with the problem anyway. However, if like me the cyclist does have lights, it is an admission that you are the dangerous road user, since you need an eye test.
If someone sitting in comfort surrounded by 1,000 kilos of metal and glass uses that privilege to yell abuse at another road user, who is unlike them exposed to the elements, in the split second that their excessive velocity takes them to overtake, they are also not particularly brave.
Anyone who’s read the Highway Code, as I did when learning to drive, should know that a cyclist is supposed to be given as much space as any other road vehicle. A motorist who gives a cyclist only a few inches’ clearance as they overtake is failing to obey the rules of the road.
When such a driver makes a misjudgment, as I know from painful memory, it’s the cyclist who suffers.
It would be nice if we could depend on courtesy from car occupants to fellow road users, but clearly this is no longer enough.
G Kent
Mountbatten Avenue
PInchbeck
