Wheely getting on my nerves!

Yet again as I go about my daily business, I am left growling under my breath as yet another cyclist elbows me as they zoom by on their bicycle.
The shock at nearly being knocked over, is amplified by the fact there is a perfectly good cycle lane adjacent to were I'm walking, thus the incident could and should have been avoided.

Cyclist knowking over a toddler; Photo: Daily Mail

There has been a massive increase into the number of people cyclng around our capital city, a mixture of government incentives, and the increasing cost of insurance and parking, lead more and people to plonk themselves on the saddle and set off.
I think this is a great thing, as it helps our environment, and our health system in the long run, as those on two wheels get a great bout of exercise everyday.
I would love to be able to cycle here and there, but do to balance issues, due to ear problems and so forth, I wouldn't last three seconds on a bike before falling over.

And yes I agree with the cycling lobby that there needs to be more done by the local authorities to ensure more of our main thoroughfares are places were cyclists can safely travel along these roads without their heart missing a beat every few seconds.
For example we should have a route from one end of the city centre to the other that would be pedestrian and bicycle only.~
This I think could very well tempt more people to cycle to work, and would mean less cars on the road, which means commercial vehicles can get from A to B faster, which is good news for our economy.

Photo from: Irishcycle.com

But back to the topic of my blog post Ahem!
There are many roads now that DO have adequete cycleways and so forth for bicyles to go down, yet many STILL cycle on foothpaths -WHY??
As for the roads that do not have provision for cyclists, forcing them to ride in front of and behind various types of vehicles, that is NOT an excuse to zoom along the FOOTpath, forcing me to dive for cover, whacking my knee against a wall (again!).
If you cannot cycle on the road amongst cars buses and trucks THEN WALK OR TAKE THE BUS!
Just because other road users are blind or simply ignorant as to your presence on the road, does not mean you have to scare te living daylights out of us walkers who use the FOOTpath.

Photo from: Pinterest

And don't get me started on the amount of cyclists who cycle with NO protection, not a helmet or a hi-viz in sight!
(Though the dude with the flowing long hair who used to go flying up South Richmond Street on a Rally chopper was a legend in my eyes!)

Cyclists are a very vocal lobby and you'll oft hear their spokerspersons on the radio, and on brief clips in the news.
I think it's about time us walkers had our own lobby too!