TWO weeks ago, while cycling along Museum Street in York on my way home from work I was involved in an accident.

I broke my kneecap and I have to spend two months with my leg in plaster and am unable to work for this time as a maths teacher in one of the city's secondary schools.

While this in itself is extremely frustrating, not to mention painful, what makes it worse is that I was knocked off my bike by an adult pedestrian stepping out into the road right in front of me without looking and without any warning.

Such recklessness is completely unnecessary since surely the need to "stop, look and listen" is as much common sense now as it ever was and not a difficult thing to do in order to avoid you or somebody else being injured.

I do realise that cyclists are by no means perfect and nothing annoys me more than cyclists who ignore the law by going through red lights or who cycle along the pavement. Our highways would be a safer place if cyclists obeyed the rules of the road - on the road - and pedestrians stayed on the footpath and looked carefully before stepping out.

Unnecessary accidents could then be avoided and our already stretched hospitals need not be stretched further.

Ian Hebden,

Garfield Terrace, York.

Updated: 10:50 Monday, November 01, 2004