I'M getting pretty sick of being frightened by cyclists every time I go for a drive or even a walk, usually by paper boys, who seem completely oblivious to anything happening around them.

One of the qualifications of being a living organism is the ability to respond to stimuli. Even plant life can manage to grow towards the sunlight. The lack of ability of cyclists, mainly the young ones, to respond to the presence of danger to themselves or others, in the form of motor vehicles or pedestrians, leads to my theory that they are some
kind of zombie.

Two boys have nearly hit me in the last week. One was when I was indicating to set out, having parked on the road. He was on the pavement, then just swerved out in front of me.

The second was riding his bike at high speed down the footpath alongside me. I had managed to overtake him, but thankfully was aware of his presence.

As I turned left at the junction, I noticed that he had caught
with me and, although he turned the corner left too, he managed to stick his front wheel mostly into the road, making me think he was swooping and causing me to stop sharply.

Note to kid: you shouldn't even be on the darned pavement. Especially not doing a Lance Armstrong impression. When I'm a pedestrian, I get sick of a handlebar in the lumbar area.

If I have to pass a test to be out there driving a potentially deadly weapon, then so should cyclists. Don't say it's not as dangerous as a car. My grandad broke a vertebra when a cyclist crashed into his spine. He was in hospital for a long while, in a full body cast.

Somebody needs to get these people some cycling lessons and save lives.


Brewery closure is a bitter blow for city

From: Barrie Pepper, Elmete Hill, Leeds.

ALTHOUGH there have been some advance warnings of Tetley brewery's closure in Leeds by Carlsberg, it has still come as a shock (Yorkshire Post, November 6). Did Carlsberg try to bury the bad news under the euphoria of the American election result? It's the sort of nasty trick that multinational corporations play.

I am shattered and so will be the city. For close on two centuries, Tetley's has been synonymous with Leeds. It was our brewery; sometimes the brewery we loved to hate, but ours nevertheless. From 1822, when Joshua Tetley bought the brewery in Salem Place from William Sykes, it has been an integral part of the city playing its part in civic life in so many ways.

The wider consequences are the loss of 170 jobs and quite probably the death of what was until recently the best selling cask conditioned ale in the world. But these things don't matter in the boardroom of a foreign entity which wouldn't know a decent beer if it flooded the place. I am sad, despondent and very angry.


Timely moment for society to consider core values

From: Shan Oakes, Green Party candidate for the European Elections, Norwood, Beverley.

KEN Hartford (Yorkshire Post, November 1) poses a profound question – one which the three main political parties are ill-equipped to answer.

Presumably this is why he addresses his question to the Green Party, which promotes "politics as if people matter" – politics based on ethical and co-operative behaviour.

Mr Hartford exposes a gap in the laws which uphold human rights. At present, such laws neglect the desperate state of the planet on which we all depend for life itself.

As Mr Hartford suggests, the need that all people, and other living things, have for clean air, clean water and clean earth is fundamental, and yet it is a need which cannot now be fulfilled for everyone, due to the politics of greed and growth.

If we are really to ensure human and other species' rights, we must develop a new politics, green politics, which promotes cooperation with each other and with nature.

Currently, companies profit by selling nature back to us. Why are we sold water? Why can giant corporations lay claim to life forms through their development of genetically modified organisms ? They
are even prosecuting farmers if GM seed contaminates a farmer's land through no fault of their own.

Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser spoke recently in Driffield about his shocking experience to warn us in the UK not to go down the GM route – because there's no turning back.

By this stage in human history perhaps we are beginning to realise that what goes around comes around – and on a planetary scale.

Humanity has a choice: do we sink or swim? We will certainly sink if we do not work together for peace and for future generations.

Mr Hartford is inviting us all to reappraise our values – and the Green Party joins him in this invitation.