Sir,

I would like to raise a complaint about Virginia Blackburn's column which I read on your website today. Terrible as Jason Howard's behaviour was, I feel she is over reacting in the cliched attack on cyclists she spins out of it. The truth is cyclists kill fewer people per year than drivers do per day, and very rarely through recklessness. Her description of cyclists "speeding down the high streets as if they're taking part in a race, ignoring red lights, terrifying pedest­rians and occasionally killing anyone who gets in their way" could more accurately be applied to motorists.

Virginia's description of her own encounter with a cyclist says more about her than him, I feel. She was in the middle of the road before she spotted him, and she was heading for a lane with heavy traffic in it? Has she not heard of the Green Cross Code? If she had looked both ways before stepping off the pavement she would have seen the cyclist and not had to make him swerve to avoid her, and she would have been able to tell that there was too much traffic to sensibly cross where she was. It sounds like she's lucky her jaywalking didn't get her and another person injured.

There are too many attacks on cyclists in the popular press, a disproportionate amount given how little danger we represent to pedestrians and other road users when compared to cars. This could be because too few journalists cycle regularly and understand the joys (and dangers) of using two wheels. To redress that balance I will happily invite Virginia, or any other Express journalist who is game, to spend a day with me cycling around the streets of Manchester. I promise it will be an eye opening experience.

Sincerely,

Ian Pattinson

http://www.2wheels.howtosavetheworldforfree.com/

Labels: idiots, Journalists, news, Road Safety, Traffic

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Labels: Manchester, Traffic