There was an article last week by Neal Butterworth about road safety and the fact that the "No Excuses" campaign was a great success.

He made a very interesting point that relates to the attitude of people that choose to break the law whilst driving.

"The news that there will be fewer traffic police on Dorset’s roads will come as welcome news to those drivers who feel it their divine right to break the law.

Not wearing seat belts, rabbiting away with a mobile phone clamped to your ear, texting messages to loved ones while motoring along and batting along at high speeds are all offences that the worst of our drivers believe are not worth fussing about."

One particular pet hate of mine that wasn't mentioned was red light jumping, this is something I see on a daily basis. As the lights turn from green to amber (which actually means stop!) cars accelerate to try and beat the red light and save a few seconds.

This started me thinking about why people break the law when on the road, irrespective of their chosen form of transportation, and I realised that the psychology can vary quite dramatically.

When it comes to red light jumping and the reasoning behind this, I can only think it boils down to impatience, no matter what you are driving or riding.

There are the obvious exceptions that come down to being oblivious of your surroundings and not even realising that the light is red, but hopefully those are rare.

I'm happy for anyone to tell me that they jump red lights for another reason, however I don't think that you are going to be able to justify your actions - emergency services responding to incidents excepted of course!

One of the things that cyclists do from time to time that really annoys people is riding on the pavement; so why do we do it?

By saying "we" I am classing myself as a pavement cyclist. There is only one reason that I occasionally ride on the pavement in areas where it is not a designated cycle path or shared route and that reason is safety.

It is a very rare occurrence for me to ride on the pavement, but it does happen from time to time and I only in circumstances where continuing on the road would put me in danger and where my riding on the pavement doesn't inconvenience or endanger any pedestrians.

When I collect my five year old daughter from school and we ride home together, she is on the pavement, but I ride alongside her on the road.

I don't condone riding on the pavement as an adult, but I do understand it and, as long as it is done carefully and responsibly, I don't have an issue with it.

Last week I was riding home and had just passed Bournemouth pier and was starting to ride along the undercliff drive towards Boscombe; there was a cyclist in front of me and as we passed onto the road part of the undercliff he moved from the road onto the pavement and continued his ride.

I am guessing that he felt safer riding along the pavement than on the road, but personally I can see why pedestrians would have been upset by this as he was riding fairly quickly and it was fairly busy.

This section of roadway is not particularly dangerous so I would have preferred to see him on the road.

My conclusion to all this is that motorists break the law due to impatience and selfishness, there are also instances where cyclists are guilty of the same thing; running red lights being a good example.

However, the other main complaint about cyclists, from my perspective, is mainly down to self preservation and the fact that we just don't feel safe enough when exercising our right to be part of the traffic on the road.