Sir – Having requested and received information from Thames Valley Police on the number of penalty tickets issued in Oxford for cycling offences, I am struck by the lack of any consistent effort to curb the many breaches of the law which occur daily. In the year ended October 31, 2011, there were 116 tickets issued for contravening a traffic sign/order, 352 for not displaying lights and 71 for riding on the pavement.

Most of the lighting tickets were issued in the annual “blitz” carried out each November with accompaning press publicity. During other dark evenings nothing much happens.

It is also not clear how many of the tickets issued actually result in payments. In only 162 of the 539 tickets issued was payment clearly received.

In the case of cycling without lights, 256 tickets were cancelled, presumably because offenders took the opportunity offerred them of presenting a receipt at a police station for the purchase of a set of lights. Neglecting one’s own safety, it is clearly advantageous to defer any purchase until one is caught, which, unless you are unlucky, is pretty unlikely. In letters to your paper, cyclists’ spokespersons never condone law breaking, yet police effort seems to be limited to a very occasional “gesture” rather than any regular action.

A random couple of hours’ enforcement from a doorway in Cornmarket or Queen Street might, over a couple of months, end breaches there, and similar regular action throughout the city could well reduce the current flagrant disregard of the law.

Frank Bland, Oxford