Nearly every day children, youths and indeed some adults ride their bicycles on the public footpath with impunity. Today at about 4.30pm I was walking towards the town along the Walsworth Road. I was just walking round a sharp corner that leads into Whinb

Nearly every day children, youths and indeed some adults ride their bicycles on the public footpath with impunity.

Today at about 4.30pm I was walking towards the town along the Walsworth Road. I was just walking round a sharp corner that leads into Whinbush Road when two cyclists came hell for leather around it and would have gone into me had I not had the presence of mind to grasp his handlebars and luckily he had good brakes. He did say he was sorry and I replied that it is against the law to ride on the footpath, he admitted that it was. However, that did not stop him and his friend continuing on the footpath on their bikes. Several times people on bicycles whizzed up behind me, they do not even use their bells, it would only need me to move slightly and they would knock me down from behind.

The police do not seem able to stop it, the other week I was driving down from Letchworth and two youths and an older man were riding on the footpath up the hill. A police car passed them and did absolutely nothing. It seems that motorists get all the stick, but nothing is done about the people who ride on pavements with no thought of the injuries they could cause.

I am 67 and luckily an agile and fit person, someone else may not have been so fortunate.

ANGELA WARNER, Hazel Court, The Avenue, Hitchin