I QUITE clearly remember the night I nearly killed a man. Or it may have been a woman. It was impossible to tell as they flew past me on their bike.

I was driving up Green Dykes Lane from Melrosegate on a filthy night a couple of years ago. It was rainy, windy and cold, and my windscreen was trying to fog up.

I slowed and indicated to turn right into Thief Lane and looked to see if anyone was coming down the hill from the University of York’s direction.

Coming over the brow of the hill was a car, and its headlights shone down towards me. It seemed there was nothing else on the road and I had plenty of time to turn right before the car arrived.

But then, just in the nick of time, I detected a movement on the road between me and the car. It was a cyclist, tearing down the hill. He, or she, had no front light or reflector, and was wearing dark clothing with no reflective or fluorescent jacket or strip, and was almost invisible on such a night.

I stopped and the cyclist flew past me, blissfully unaware, it seemed, how close they had come to cycling straight into the side of my car and then, presumably, flying through the air and landing goodness knows where or how, possibly dead and almost certainly injured.

I felt relief but also anger and confusion, as lots of questions flooded my mind. What were they thinking of? Didn’t they realise how close they came to a nasty accident and didn’t they know or care that it was illegal to cycle on a public road after dark without lights and reflectors?

If I hadn’t spotted him/her, would I have been at least partially to blame for any accident, in the eyes of the law? And shouldn’t cyclists have to wear a reflective jacket at night, so they really cannot be missed by motorists?

I suspect many drivers will have been through similar near misses, and so might welcome, as I do, a Government decision to go out to consultation on plans to make cyclists wear high-vis vests for the first time, as well as helmets. As an occasional cyclist myself, the changes seems to make sense.

Latest figures have shown that more than 100 cyclists were killed on British roads last year, with a further 3,397 seriously injured, a five per cent increase in 12 months.

It’s a terrible toll of lives lost and ruined but perhaps not too surprising when one remembers how a motorist’s dashcam recently recorded a cyclist pulling straight in front of an oncoming bus near York railway station. The Press reported that the cyclist only avoided injury thanks to the bus driver’s actions.

And then there was the video recorded with a helmet camera by a York cyclist in 2014 and then posted on YouTube, which featured cyclists jumping red traffic lights, cycling on the pavement, going down one way streets the wrong way, using mobile phones while cycling and in one case, removing a jacket while cycling along and then tumbling to the ground, with the bike on top of him – fortunately, not badly injured.

The videoing cyclist said he had been cycling in York for 30 years and had become increasingly concerned about the reckless behaviour of some cyclists.

But he also, quite rightly, said there was another side to the story and that was the appalling, selfish and dangerous driving of some motorists, which he also caught on camera: motorists parking illegally and blocking cycle lanes, speeding, jumping red traffic lights, failing to indicate, passing cyclists too fast and too close, driving while on their mobile phone or eating, and pulling out in front of cyclists.

And let’s not forget a dangerous driver is far more likely to kill a cyclist than a dangerous cyclist is to kill a motorist. I have a friend who could easily have been killed when a lorry passing her came too close and she was struck by its wing mirror.

So yes, let’s see high-vis vests and a crackdown on cyclists without lights, and other cycling misdemeanours, but we need another, simultaneous, and equally tough campaign against the bad drivers who also turn our roads into death traps for cyclists.

And most of all, both cyclists and motorists need to take care, and then even more care, as they try to co-exist on York’s often narrow roads.