IN view of the tolerance shown by pedestrians to cyclists on pavements, towpaths and in parks, they do not deserve to be mocked, especially if infirm, by your cycling correspondent, James Styring.

In his On Yer Bike column (Tuesday’s Oxford Mail), he described those who complain as members of an ‘anti-cycle lobby’ who see cyclists as ‘lunatic riders dressed like ninjas... without lights’ who ‘race along pavements with sharpened swords poking out of their wheel hubs like Boudicca’s chariot, hacking the legs off hapless pedestrians’.

But it is not surprising they should be concerned that there is scarcely anywhere they can walk without fear of an encounter with a cyclist (most of whom do not have bells) when, in the year ended October 31, 2011, in the limited time available for the purpose, the police in Oxford issued 352 notices on cyclists for not displaying lights, 71 for riding on the pavement and 116 for contravening traffic lights.

Mr Styring argued in a column last December that cyclists do not always need to observe traffic lights.

Yet he claims that, as a percentage, there are no more idiots cycling than ‘idiots walking’.

ROBERT SEPHTON Cherwell Close Abingdon