I am impressed that the contributors to these pages have identified the big issues stalking us as a community and as a society more broadly.
Of course I refer to the problem of bicycles identified by Crompton and Prideaux (Echo Letters). I emphatically agree with Crompton, who suggests that cyclists ‘who ride outside the town’ should be licensed and the revenue raised from such an ingenuous scheme be utilised to ‘fix the potholes’. Everybody knows that bikes cause potholes.
I also agree that when cars overtake us cyclists they really bear the risk. Licensing us would hopefully lead to a diminution in inter-town cycling so would rid the roads of the velo-menace that so selfishly clogs them. We all understand the velo-cause of the Shirley Street gridlock. This would also make life safer for the car drivers who so bravely pass us.
Prideaux brings a bit more granular specificity to the threat to our society by correctly identifying the problem of recalcitrant violators of helmet laws. I apologise for the threat that we anarchists pose to decent society by our failure to comply with this ‘vital safety factor’. Anyone who has had the misfortune to spend time in European cities (or countrysides) will agree that cycling sans helmet really has a corrosive effect on society.
Once we deal with the major problem that cyclists pose to humanity then we can start to address such secondary issues as climate change. I suggest that cars are the answer to these twin challenges. We cyclists must repent for threatening our community and species with the velo-menace.
Dave Lisle, Mullumbimby
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
