MOST people who cycle regularly around York will have their own stories of near misses or narrow scrapes: of cars, lorries or buses which have pulled out ahead of them, or turned without spotting them.

That’s true of every town and city in the UK. Beverley teenager Guy Preston knows all about that. Guy was knocked off his bike by a car on the A1079. He spent three weeks in hospital, can no longer run or play football – and has lost many childhood memories. He accepts, however, that he is lucky to be alive, believing that he has “been given a second chance at life”.

Guy spoke out in Road Safety Week to urge all road users to try to be more careful. “I’m asking everyone to look out for each other on the roads, and in particular drivers to slow down to 20mph in communities and give vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists plenty of room,” he said. Very sensible advice, which we hope readers will heed.

Nestlé, meanwhile, has been piloting a new electronic device aimed at alerting lorry drivers to the presence of cyclists. The company’s fleet manager Mick Thompson admits there are many blind spots on trucks. So Nestlé has fitted an ‘electronic bike detector’ – which alerts a driver to the presence of any cyclist sporting a Cycle Alert tag on their bike – to one of its lorries, and is considering adding them to the rest of its fleet.

It’s an interesting idea, which if it takes off could be a way of raising the visibility of cyclists. All credit to Nestlé for setting an example.