• AS a motorist, as I sit in the ever-present queue of stationary traffic at the lights, I often wonder why the cyclists alongside me are waiting there also.

After all, there’s a world of difference with respect to risk, between my two-ton vehicle, which may be propelled forward by a feather-light touch of the accelerator, and a 30kg bicycle with pedals.

If I am involved in a collision with another motorised vehicle I have my specially-designed car body – the safety features of which have been honed over decades of research and with stringent legislative requirements – and which is full of handy gadgets, such as air bags, seat-belts etc, to ensure my safety.

No such luxuries for the lowly cyclist (no bets on who wins…).

So I cannot imagine that a cyclist is going to pass through a red light without being absolutely certain that there are no cars approaching the junction; or, if there are, that their passage across can be completed safely. There is just too much at stake for them to get that judgment wrong.

It seems that cyclists do not have a hard-wired desire to jump the lights, but that in most cases it is simply safer to do so.

DR GREG CARSON, NW5