IRONY AS NATIONAL BIKE WEEK GOES MOBILE

Am I alone in seeing the terrible irony in this? National Bike Week (June 14-22) is being backed by Nokia, manufacturer of mobile phones. These are handy devices of the 21st century I will admit. But one which, when used illegally on the move by tens of thousands of drivers daily in the UK, is putting cyclists in fear for their lives.

The law against the use of hand-held mobiles while driving was introduced because scientific research discovered that drivers doing so risked crashing because their responsive times were four times worse than if drunk.

It?s all to do with the remote voice in your ear being more distracting than that of a companion in the vehicle. The same applies to hands-free devices, but for some reason their use is not illegal.

Drivers now face jail if charged with dangerous driving while using a hand-held phone or fiddling with a satellite navigation system, yet another device safety experts fear will detract the driver from actually looking where he or she is going.

There is no law to prevent cyclists using a mobile while riding, and lack of commonsense means many do so.

During Bike Week cyclists are being offered the ?perfect bike buddy?, voice guided navigation, presumably to take them to the nearest tea room without them ever needing to know where it actually is.