THE BOY CYCLIST NUISANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15862, 27 February 1912, Page 8

THE BOY CYCLIST NUISANCE.

TO TUB EDITOR.

Sir, —During the Last few weeks many remarks have been published in your columns dealing with the dangers met by motorists on the road. If you liavo space to insert these lines, I shall be vefy much obliged. They deal with a seldom-mentioned but very great danger to all road travellers. I refer to fauall hoy cyclists, ranging from nino years to fourteen or fifteen years of ago. They are a continual worry, for most of them cither know no rules of the road or they aro determined to recognise none, and consequently they are an unending danger to everyone. To mention a particular instance, yesterday on tlie Main North Iload my motor-car was overtaking the usual boy cyclist, and for a considerable distance I was sounding my “Echo” screamer, and later my horn as well, but until I was almost upon him the boy took no notice, and when he did take notice he shot right across to his wrong side, when there was no reason whatever for doing so. His own side was clear, but it is the old tale, in nine cases out of ten the cyclists mentioned will do tho same thing. Over and over again it has happened to me, and I have no doubt but that any motorist or other road traveller in Christchurch will uphold the above statements. I repeat that one of the greatest dangers on the road is the youthful cyclist. Surely for their own safety they should be prevented from riding bicycles on main roads until they can be trusted to observe the rules of the road. If an accident occurs, it is of course not tho boy who is blamed. They imperil their own lives, and in most cases the lives of four or five other people at the same time. Trusting you will publish my remarks and so call attention to this danger, and thanking you in anticipation,—l am, etc., P.D.