From MARK CAMPBELL
Sir, - I used to think that it was all in my head. That car driver didn't really deliberately cut me up when he turned left. I was just in his blind spot. Obviously the batteries in my bicycle lamps aren't strong enough, otherwise the woman who just pulled out of the side-turn a few feet in front of me would have seen me. Clearly, the person who didn't see the luminous day-glo, Sam Brown-belt and bright orange jacket I'm wearing was just colour blind. Maybe, I should have imprinted the word GARDA on it just to break up the colour - I've noticed that motorists sometimes pay attention to that.
But I have been reading your letters page and now I know I was wrong all along. The average Dublin motorist views the cyclist as a target for venting his anger. That man who has been sitting in traffic, inching his way up to the lights while picking his nose and glaring at me really does hate me.
That's why, when the lights turn green, he will do his damnedest to get ahead of me and then pull over to within 10 centimetres of the kerb while he crawls along to the next set of lights. That's why he'll beep at me for the next 300 metres to tell me to get out of the bus and bike lane. That's why he won't bother to use his mirrors when he takes the next left and why he won't even notice me lying in the gutter nursing a bleeding leg when I hit the kerb. And then, when he parks his car in his tax-free parking space at the office (20 minutes late, again!) he will spend the first hour of his working day fuming about cyclists and composing a strongly worded letter to The Irish Times. - Yours, etc.,
Delbrook Park, Dundrum, Dublin 16.