Confessions of a cyclist
From Mr John van der Pas Sir: As one of those `horrible Europeans' who was born and raised in the Nether- lands and has thousands of bicycle miles under his belt, I may be considered knowl- edgable on the subject and able to pass comment on James Bartholomew's pro- posed solutions (`Terrorists in Lycra shorts', 21 October).
I have asked myself why areas of roads destined for pedestrians are called pave- ments. Was it because when the Highways Act of 1835, Section 72, became law that the rest of the road was largely unpaved? Were there any motor vehicles about in 1835?
I live on the outskirts of Poole and, weath- er permitting, I always cycle into town as it is far quicker, seeing that its carparks are invariably full. What is available to me in the way of cycle tracks is the area between two yellow lines so despised by motorists, i.e. four inches. Only a Dutchman manages to stay within those two lines, but it is a bit tricky, and even then motorists begrudge me the space and demonstrate this by narrowly miss- ing me with their wing mirrors. As a typical Dutchman, despite 55 years of domicility in England, I hold that laws are made to be bro- ken and, as I hate hospitals, I invariably use the pavement. Some stretches of the latter are wider than the road and I rarely encounter a pedestrian. If I do, and being a decent as well as a common-sense type of fel- low, I stop to let that rare species pass. Thus no one is inconvenienced or endangered. By the way, the Dutch treat cyclists as `equals', they don't discriminate against them, and as such there is hardly a town or
LETTERS
village in Holland that cannot be comfort- ably reached via a well-constructed cycle track often far away from any road used by motor vehicles. Its courts also tend to put the burden of guilt on the motorist in the case of an accident involving a cyclist. All in all, it shows that Britain has a lot to learn from Continental Europeans when it comes to civilised behaviour and common sense. John van der Pas johnvanderpas@supanet.com
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