I have a confession to make. This morning, on the way to work I cycled on the "sidewalk". It was only for a few seconds, but I cannot tell a lie and pretend it didn't happen. I was proceeding in an orderly fashion along a dedicated cycle path that runs alongside a main road. It's a bit of a farce of a cycle path, because drivers park on it thus rendering it useless for cyclists and in places it ceases to exist for no apparent reason, but that's all by-the-by. Anyway, a car just in front of me cruised off their bit of the road and into the cycle path - again, for no apparent reason. I didn't take it personally - I think it was probably a combination of poor lane discipline and dozy sod syndrome. I had to slam the brakes on, whilst simultaneously checking there were no pedestrians on this stretch of pavement so I could hop onto it rather than crash into the back of the errant car.

Can I be excused my fine please? I know I've committed the sort of terrible crime that passing motorists may clock as another example of what rules-of-the-road defying BASTARDS us cyclists are, but at least no-one got hurt, no cars got scratched and the only person at risk of injury was me - and injury was only averted because as a cyclist I had my wits about me.

I'm not telling this story because it's unusual, but because it's increasingly the norm.