Letter: Cyclist urges pedestrians to take more care

I ride a cycle and I’m absolutely cheesed off by people stepping off the pavement without so much as a glance over their shoulder.

I say “people” because, incredibly, adults are less thoughtful than their children when crossing the road.

These suicidal folk are everywhere.

They drift across the road, head bowed over their phone screens and tapping the keys, they walk in the centre of supermarket car parks, pushing trolleys with their backs to traffic flow.

That’s not all. Parents collecting children from school, fling open their car doors into the path of a rider and even drive away from the kerb without checking in their mirror to make sure someone isn’t pedalling up the road.

I’ve seen it all ...young mums swerving baby’s pushchair off the pavement to talk to another parent on the other side of the road or to a shop.

They don’t look and check.

If I dare ring my bike bell I have to withstand a barrage of abusive, insulting language or at the least a facial expression that says: “What the...were you doing there?”

I’m not some kind of anti-motoring weirdo, I was once a driver but had to surrender my licence a few years ago because my eyesight failed to match current standard.

In spite of this, I regard it as my duty to scan ahead all the time.

Patrick Braithwaite

West Road

Filey