Cars have indeed improved a lot in the last 100 years unlike the rattly old push-bike which is really more or less unchanged and still hard work to use. You never have to go under the bonnet of a car now and you can even drive them with a flat tyre (I saw someone doing that the other night and it does work in an exciting way!). With CD player, air conditioning and a heated reclining seat a car really is comfy and safe. With toughened, tinted windows and central locking it's a pleasure to laugh at all these poor souls that wait at the bus stops beside the empty bus lanes. And push-bikes - really! The idea of 'working' before I get to work just doesn't make sense.

The people that use them have a fashion sense that stopped around 1980 anyway. This is the 21st century for God's sake. We live in a country that produces oil. You'll notice that your pound goes up with every bit of bad news from Iraq simply because we've got a nice secure oil supply that's piped ashore near Aberdeen! No wonder Gordon Brown doesn't want to join the Euro. Of course bikes do use oil - usually spread over the hands and clothes of the user! My Smart car uses hardly any and less road space than one of those tandem trailer tag-along thingies that some dads (and mums?) use to punish their children (Now these are dangerous - I will return to them in the future.) I am heartened to see that todays middle class youth are shunning bikes, borrowing a car and getting straight behind the wheel. Mind you shady kids in baseball caps on housing schemes still like bikes but even they are turning to wee motorbikes and scootery things which they can ride off-road or along the canal paths. Good luck to them I say, as long as they're nowhere near my car!

The true two wheeled heroes - they're mean and quite green So cars are totally comfy which is more than can be said for almost any two wheeled vehicle. Though the site of roaring Harleys can¹t fail to ignite excitement in any real man or woman. They are a celebration of chrome and petrol - the very spirit of a forward looking, oil producing country! Just what we need to remind people why we and the Americans are fighting the Iraq war shoulder to shoulder (though several hundred miles apart to be safe).

Seriously though, I'd let bikers use the bike and bus lanes as they are so economical and green. They are the real oppressed minority and a lot braver than people trundling about at 9 mph sweating profously getting in the way of the latest Megane. Now that is some looker of a car, with it's beautifully shaped rear end - ready to take almost anything you can think of. Why would anyone want to get in the way of that? I¹ve just seen the future of motoring and it¹s bum shaped in a sauve sophisticated kind of way! Show me the push-bike that is the equal of that. Anyway - I tend to ignore most push-bikes unless they really get in the way and force me to use my brakes or change gear when I shouldn't need to. Put simply motorists are the vast majority of normal people and most multi-task quite ably only to be confronted by a push-bike riding illegally three feet out from the kerb. Squeezing by is not easy for me as I'm risking my paintwork. However it does discourage many cyclists from going out on a bike again and maybe being hit by someone less tolerant than me. So in my small way I'm altering the balance and teaching them to 'let go' and learn to drive.