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In the back of my right earlobe is a bit of grit.

I was knocked off of my bike when doing my paper round one morning. I was turning right, the driver of the car behind me wasn’t paying attention and the piece of grit is the remnants of the gravel rash that I received on that side of my face.

I’ve never really ridden a bike since that morning. Although the driver’s insurance paid to replace my bike, which was a write-off, I didn’t bother. I did my paper round on foot after that day (and once I’d recovered).

Funnily enough I don’t really remember the pain, but I do remember the sounds of the rather late braking of the car behind me on the damp tarmac and to this day that sound can send a shiver down my spine.

I still don’t want to ride a bike, my thing is walking. Despite the encouragement to ride because it’s better for the environment, I can’t. If anything my view is that the roads are less safe today than they were 40 years ago. That said I find it’s also not all that safe being a pedestrian and that is in part due to cyclists (and electric scooter riders) riding on paths and pavements where they shouldn’t be, and probably because some of them feel safer doing that than riding on the road.

At the end of our road is a bus lane and cycle route, no cars allowed. It’s controlled by a set of traffic signals on a three way junction. I’ve seen many a cyclist come down the bus lane and jump the traffic lights rather than wait for them to go green in their favour. Everytime it makes me wince because sooner or later one of them will misjudge the oncoming traffic and perhaps end up being knocked off and injured or worse.

Even if I hadn’t been knocked off my bike as a kid and was still riding, I doubt that I’d be coming down through those lights unless they were green anyway, but the piece of grit in the back of my ear certainly wouldn’t let me do it now. It’s that kind of a reminder.