I CONSIDER myself a responsible cyclist. I wear a helmet and high visibility jacket and I do not cycle on pavements and, yes, I do have a bell on my cycle.

I regularly cycle between Woodbury Avenue and Yeomans Road on the Castle Lane cycle route in front of Castlepoint.

The majority of pedestrians walking along the cycle path rather than the pedestrian section simply ignore the ringing of my bell.

What use is a bell? Certainly none when a cyclist finds pedestrians sitting with their backs against the bus shelter with legs stretched across the cycle path, nor when bus users suddenly erupt from the back of the shelter without looking.

When travelling from the direction of Woodbury Avenue, the cycle path curves behind the bus shelter and sitters/pedestrians cannot be seen until the last minute.

And what use is a bell when a pedestrian suddenly, and for no apparent reason, moves from the pedestrian path on to the cycle path without looking?

This happened to me on Saturday, May 14 outside the Bathstore when a young man did exactly that and walked into the side of my bike giving me no time to do anything other than shout ‘no!’.

I was cycling very slowly due to another pedestrian walking ahead of me in the cycle lane to the crossing so I was fortunate to lose only a small amount of skin and suffer some bruising when my bicycle and I parted company rather abruptly and we finished against the fence.

Another 10-12 metres further along and I would almost certainly have finished in the road and potentially under the wheels of a car.

When will pedestrians become aware of cycle lanes? Treat them like a road, don’t walk in them and look before you cross them.

Think bike! Make cycle routes a safe place for cyclists, you can’t always blame the cyclist.

MISS I H SCARLETT, Damerham Road, Bournemouth