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Dear Editor,
In response to the letter from Wednesday 9 July, I would also like to apologise to a cyclist that I had an unpleasant encounter with. Please accept this as my humble apology.
On a certain day some time ago, I did something over the top that I regret today. I was driving up to a roundabout when all of a sudden a cyclist cycled across the road over a zebra crossing about 50 yards ahead of me. I was approaching the zebra crossing at a high speed when I saw what I was convinced of was bad behaviour on part of the cyclist. He really should have dismounted his bike on the zebra crossing. It made my blood boil and so I honked the horn at the cyclist all the way down to the roundabout also shouting abuse and spitting at the cyclist out of my white van window. I shouted words such as "you're above the law, you red-light crosser you!!" The cyclist...a young kid I must admit...just looked over at me with a stunned and puzzled look on his face while continuing on his way. I almost did another circle round the roundabout in order to go back after the cyclist and continue shouting abuse at him out of my window, had I not been under time pressure to deliver a load I was transporting. I felt a rage that was almost taking control over me but then later abated as I continued on my tight schedule into town.
Sometimes I wonder what I could have been capable of doing that day when shouting at the cyclist. I just felt...no, during that encounter I was convinced that cyclists have no business on busy roads that hard-working van drivers and other honest commuters like myself need to use for a living day in day out. We must ask ourselves if Ireland really is a place or culture for cyclists. We don't have the cycling paths and infrastructure that most German cities and villages have and let's face it, we don't have the weather. So why bother? Are cyclists just trying to make a point to us by insinuating that we are the CO2 sinners and they are holy ones emitting zero air pollutants while on their way to work, school, or even the shop for a pint of milk?
Well, if the few cyclists that venture onto a Galway road continue to do that then they will continue to be the objects of our frustration and rage, that's all I can say...and white van drivers like myself have plenty of that built up inside us, believe you me!
Yours on the road,
Name and address with editor
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