At times I feel like I'm going insane...

Sometimes I feel as if I'm banging my head against a wall. I've looked back on the letters/emails I've written, approximately 300 in 2011, sent to mostly various newspapers. I estimate around 100 have been published in some form. They are written not just from experience, or from my knowledge of statistics and various bits of research (that which is dwarfed by the knowledge of others - Mike Chalkley of the Bournemouth Cycle Forum, or Lindsi Bluemel of Southampton Cycle Campaign - these people have been Guardian Angels to cyclists outside of London). But these letters are written because I feel passionately that I can help do something.

I am the very embodiment sometimes of that cartoon. A man is on the internet, his wife calls out "are you coming to bed?!" His reply is "..hold on, someone is wrong on the internet!" I fully accept that I am like that: if something is wrong and I know better I have an obligation to attempt to set the record straight.

I had recently been doubting my attempts. I've witnessed a fair amount of bad road use, the sort of stuff that's entirely avoidable if people stop and look, slow down, or simply obey the rules or laws of this land. It's not just drivers, its everyone - cyclists included. I got to the point where I've actively challenged a couple of people about their idiocy. I'm not happy to have had to.

So today it is with some relief that I read the same headline again: Save Our Cyclists! A headline printed in the Independent last year, now repeated in The Times. Perhaps the message is getting across? Perhaps with the National Press on our side we can move this forward. However I still have concerns.

- Why is this still so London-centric? There are cyclists being killed and seriously injured outside of London every few days. When you get into a debate with people about this the answers are thus: this isn't London, and our cyclists are different, they are worse! This needs to be challenged. The facts need to come across that  many of those in the KSI data are not to blame. And where blame is levelled at the cyclist, even partially, more needs to be said and done from the authorities to challenge this.

- Further... No one is asking WHY some cyclists end up riding on pavements, or through red lights. What is the psychology behind an unlit cyclist at night? I've only spoken to a few who do the two former, and the message is this - "I feel safer and motor traffic scares me!"

- Trucks, lorries and HGVs. Too much focus on these and not enough on safer overtaking practice by all vehicles, and taking the extra second to look when waiting at junctions - you never know when you will encounter a cyclist or motorcyclist. Sometimes, yes sometimes, those large vehicles should not be used in areas where they may conflict with pedestrians and cyclists. We need our hauliers and our delivery drivers, but we need to be sensible. Cyclists need safe routes over and above painting the gutter a funny colour (I am fully in support of segregation in many circumstances, it has to be said).

- And more to the point: we have to ask, yet again, why so many people wont cycle in the UK. It is evidence that successive Governments have paid lip-service. It is evidence that the media has played its part in the demonisation (just you wait, the Independent received many a letter in anger against us following their campaign and The Times will too).

I want people to feel that cycling can help them. I want people to see the health benefits, the financial benefits, the congestion benefits. I want normal people to feel they can pick up a bike, get training if they wish but be safe in the knowledge that nothing bad will happen. There have been tongue-in-cheek websites dedicated to "which cyclist are you?" Lycra looney? Urban cammo warrior? Sit up and beg? But the truth is cyclists in the UK fall into these categories: the disenfranchised, the sportier cyclist often from a club or doing it for fitness, the hiviz with a billion lights on their bikes, and then the ninja.

We have been left with an average modal share of around 2% of all traffic in the UK. Is it any wonder only the stubborn (me), the disenfranchised and the idiots are the only ones really riding.