HOW MANY other people, I wonder, have taken their lives in their hands trying to flag down a bus in Magdalen Street, Oxford? With this short street crowded from end to end with buses going to every conceivable destination, one single-decker is easy to miss.

The number 14 bus going to the JR has the last stop here which means that, in order to make oneself visible, it is necessary to step out in front of the other parked buses. My particular bus driver with his eyes on the traffic lights was all set to pass on without stopping. He reckoned without an equally determined pensioner making sure that he wouldn’t do so.

By stepping out into the middle of the road, holding up all the other buses, I forced him to take note. He then had to pull up outside The Taylorian. In order to reach the bus I had to cross the many lanes of cars coming in and out of Beaumont Street.

Fortunately the cars stopped for me, otherwise I would have ended up another traffic fatality statistic – a thought that has given me many sleepless nights since. A HORNER, Eden Drive, Headington, Oxford