A while ago, waiting for a bus, I witnessed from a distance a collision between a car driven by a woman pulling out of a school exit road and a girl on a pushbike, on a designated cycle path which crossed the exit road.

The girl, who finished up under the car, was fortunately not seriously hurt but her bike was damaged.

A man walking close by at the time helped the girl to her feet, loaded the bike into the woman’s car, the girl got in the passenger seat and the car drove off.

The man told me the girl was shaken but unhurt and the woman was taking her home.

He also said the woman offered to pay for all repairs to the bike.

That set me thinking. I got on the bus and as I passed the exit gate, I looked down at the cycle path.

Although worn by time, the ‘give way’ triangles were visible. It was the cyclist who had been at fault.

If she got her bike repaired, as well as being unhurt, she was a doubly lucky girl.

Recently, again I was on a bus picking up passengers at the other side of the road.

I glanced across to the exit road to see a young male cyclist on the same cycle path riding at a fair pace, no helmet, no hands on the handlebars, looking down at his phone, cross the road, totally oblivious to the fact that it should be him that gives way.

I shuddered at the thought of a car emerging just then.

Mike Harrison,

Millfield Lane,

Nether Poppleton, York