Things that concern me - 4

This one will make me even more uber-popular in the area - but I have to do it.

Receiving the award this time......cyclists.

Well, that's not fair. It's incorrect of me to say I have an issue with all people who ride bikes.

I don't.

If that's how you choose to exercise - great. I hope you enjoy it, and it gives you hours of endless pleasure.

At this stage, I could get on to the debate about why cyclists shave their legs, but I don't want to get sidetracked.

My irk, and indeed my fear, is for cyclists who use leafy winding country roads to indulge their past-time.

It's all very well saying "Treat me like a small car."

1. Pay road tax, then

2. Behave like a small car. Don't go zig-zagging into a wavy movement at the strangest possible moment. Abide by the speed limit. Doing twenty miles an hour in a sixty mile per hour zone, and then getting tetchy when someone races up behind you....travelling at all of 40 around a bend, is not the driver's fault necessarily.

This may come across as condescending - that I'm miffed because I've been slowed down in the past by people on bikes, and that I've got a chip on my shoulder as a result.

It's not intended to read like that.

This goes in part to one of my greatest concerns.

People used to say everyone in our area knew someone, either directly, or through their neighbourhood who was killed on Piper Alpha.

Nowadays, it's more common to know someone who's been affected by a road accident. It's the creeping killer.

Now, I don't know whether statistics are increasing every year or not - but it certainly seems that way.

I know of at least three kids, and that's all they were, kids, who used to go along to a club where I was a youth worker.

All of them managed to kill themselves behind the wheel of a car, before their 21st birthdays.

Going back to the cycling issue for a moment. I appreciate it looks like I'm really nit-picking.

Don't think for a moment I blame every road accident on cyclists. That's not what I'm saying at all.

I'm merely suggesting, for the sake of public safety, we limit the use of bikes on certain roads.

Difficult to enforce I know, but I've lost count the number of times I've seen a cyclist on a road pedalling on the main dual carriageway, alongside a designated cycling path, running adjacently, not ten feet to the left.

Answers on a postcard to that one.

Here's the absolute nuts and bolts of the matter.

Cycling is a sport.

For every sport, there's an arena. A designated area where that sport takes place. Football pitches, basketball courts, running tracks, swimming pools, and, to the best of my knowledge, velodromes - those lovely stadiums you see on the Olympics or The Commonwealth Games when you've watched the cycling before.

Why can't cyclists ride there in comparative safety?

I've yet to see hurdlers on the South Deeside Road. I'm not ruling it out, but I think it unlikely.

Never have I witnessed anyone having a go at shot-putting on the A944 between Alford and Westhill.

I've yet to come across a footie match at the Haudagain Roundabout.

You get the idea.

So what do you think?

Wait - I know. On me bike.