NEWS that a second resident parking scheme is set to be unveiled by council bosses, giving car owners the right to park on the road outside their own front door, raises the question -- why should car owners have the right to park outside their front door on the road, when children no longer enjoy the right to play safely outside their front door and cyclists haven't yet won the right to cycle on the road -- with safety and respect that is?

A few years ago, in a bid to ease traffic congestion and to encourage people to take up cycling -- not for every journey, but perhaps for the odd, short journey -- the Government introduced the National Cycling Strategy. One specific aim was to encourage children to cycle to school.

Not only would this help to ease congestion, but also help to replace the health benefits they had been "robbed" of by car dependency -- no longer willing or able to play the energetic street games of their predecessors and always being ferried around in cars.

Bolton, like most local authorities, struggled to provide, against opposition and a road network that had, over the years, been given over to total car dependency. Some authorities fared better than others, and although Bolton has examples of ideal provision for cyclists, such as Moss Bank Way, there is also some dreadful provision, eg: Chorley New Road (just past Beaumont Road) where the road surface is so bad, with deep holes and huge cracks hiding in the shadows looking to punish the slightest mistake, that even an experienced cyclist is dicing with death.

Then a mile or so further along this stretch of road as we approach Horwich, much of the cycle lane, although in a good state of repair, can't be ridden in because vehicles are always parked in it, as they are in many other cycle lanes. In effect, this means that cyclists are forever having to pull out into the "line of fire", with few drivers willing to oblige them.

Are cycle lanes for cycling in or for parking in?

Are they there so that cyclists can enjoy safe and pleasant travel or for idle drivers to park in so they don't have too far to walk?

Cycling may not be everyone's cup of tea, but then neither are road traffic accidents, congestion, gridlock and ill health. If the nation's transport system and its health are ever going to improve, we need to show equal provision and respect for everyone's right to safe travel and their choice of transport, whether it be walking or driving, and their right to good health if they so choose. This is a God-given right, not a driving licence.

Even now, while cyclists are still waiting for more provision and respect, drivers are to be treated, if they have a passenger, to a fast track motorway lane.

Simply continuing to satisfy the incessant selfish demands of couch-potato drivers, who inflict their bad habits on everyone, will simply get us deeper into trouble. We will either all end up trapped in gridlock, laid up in hospital, or stuck at home waiting for a hospital bed.

Allan Ramsay

Ashcombe Drive

Radcliffe