AMES Styring’s column (December 10) about the dangers of the road took me back to the time before World War Two when dozens of us cycled to school every day.

Thinking back, I can’t recall any time when I felt in danger and, what is more, can’t think of anyone being injured.

If you were seen by a policeman without a front light, the chances are he would stop you and remind you your lamp wasn’t working and might even attempt to help you to get it to work. Failing that you would be told to walk but certainly not be threatened with a fine.

In those days our only rear light was a reflector, which seemed effective enough but, come the war, when streetlights were extinguished and cars had hoods over their lamps, cycling became rather more hazardous – something that prompted the Government to make a rear light compulsory.

This order presented the cycle shops with a problem because, at the time, there were not enough rear lights available.

Glazers were brought in to cut circles of red glass to fit front lamps.

Most of us used ordinary battery-operated lamps but my father used what were called carbide acetylene lamps.

His journeys to work were often long and in the dark.

Unfortunately, he was killed when hit by a lorry when cycling to work along the northern bypass in 1958.

These days many cyclists seem to belong to a different class from those I knew.

I sometimes think that they have a death wish since they seem to have no road sense at all, cycling almost anywhere to keep moving, ignoring road signs or traffic lights, often in the dark without lights.

DERRICK HOLT, Fortnam Close, Headington, Oxford