ON New Year’s Eve, as millions of people who can’t afford public transport, let alone a car, cycled to work, many millions more cycled for fun.

The group I was in amounted to 10 from the Bolton Clarion CC.

Leaving Bolton Town Hall at 9am, we covered some 60 miles around West Lancashire, stopping for cake and coffee at Cedar Tree Farm, Mawdesley.

All over Lancashire, there are road signs requesting drivers to pass safely and leave a clear 1.5 metre gap between the nearside of their vehicle and cyclists.

They were installed by the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership and Lancashire Constabulary several months ago. But the gap is only advisory.

Not so in 28 American states, and significant parts of Canada, Europe, Australia, and South Africa, where its law, and in Ireland, it’s currently under consideration.

As UK law stands: if the driver of a 40-tonne truck doesn’t want to slow down for oncoming traffic, or can’t use an overtaking lane because of faster-moving traffic, he/she can leave any gap they see fit, which could be 1.5 centimetres or less.

And, if the speed limit is 60mph, they can pass at 60mph, even in treacherous driving conditions.

Hence, when time is money, it means a significant number of drivers — taxi, express delivery, HGV — might terrify cyclists, or indeed horse-riders.

To try and avoid such circumstances, we did our best to avoid busy roads.

The downside was that, many roads were broken-up, and potholed — far worse than when we rode the route a week before Christmas.

Time and again, cyclists in the UK are condemned for riding two abreast. If 10 riders, ride single file, at two seconds apart, (a second for thinking, and a second for braking), at 20mph, they could be the length of two articulated wagons, and on winding roads, (weaving around potholes), be impossible to pass safely.

If they ride two abreast, (50cm apart, and 50cm between handlebars), they discourage dangerous passing. They also take up far less room than two 4x4s.

When cyclists have to pass parked cars, they are advised by the Department for Transport to ‘ride a door's width from parked vehicles’.

Invariably, this means riding in the middle of the road. Also, when they ride in country lanes, the DfT advises: ‘Ride centrally in narrow lanes’. This also applies to narrow city/town centre lanes.

The truth of the matter is that, parked vehicles do more to cause gridlock than cyclists. And, where 10 cyclists plus bikes, weigh a total of appox 750kg; a £65k 4x4, with just a driver on board, weighs approx 2,500kg.

Accordingly, Theresa May’s New Year message for impatient drivers should be: "Stop blaming cyclists for the world’s problems. And, for damaging our roads, and polluting our planet, blame oversized vehicles, travelling at excessive/inappropriate speeds."

Allan Ramsay

Radcliffe Moor Road

Radcliffe