West End Letters: Anthony Porter | Bicycles

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 25 July 2008

White sticks would help riders!

• IF reader Anthony Porter wants number plates for bicycles, I demand white sticks for pedestrians (Is it time to give cyclists number plates? July 18).
Only this evening, a couple too busy chatting to look stepped from the pavement and looked in the opposite direction to that of the traffic they were obstructing with their frail bodies and inattentive minds – a cyclist’s nightmare!
This behaviour is far from unusual, more’s the pity.
I only wish that pedestrians had some idea of what is actually going on around them but, sadly, it is rare indeed. In my experience, pedestrians occupy a personal “me-bubble” that sees them step onto a pedestrian crossing and oblige a vehicle to stop when the road behind it is empty of oncoming traffic.
If God gave them feet he missed out on the brain in far too many cases. And 30 years’ patrolling London’s streets on foot as a police officer only reinforces that view.
Mr Porter should declare the annual death toll of people in accidents involving motor vehicles if he wants to talk “statistics”.
Those involving cycles are so rare they are a “talking point” when they do occur.
MARK NEWBERRY
Harcourt Street, W1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
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Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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