Illustration: Edd Aragon. The bus had to sound its horn and pull over to the right, into the oncoming lane, to get past the cyclist. When the cyclist caught up with the bus at the next set of traffic lights, he allegedly banged on the side of the bus, and broke the bus driver's side mirror. This is classic angry cyclist behaviour, as if it's up to the cycling fraternity to forcibly educate the motoring public and instil fear like jackbooted Soviets. How aggressive do you have to be at 5am, anyway? You never hear of rowers, joggers, swimmers, yoga artists or other dawn fitness devotees attacking people. You can see from the footage later on, when the bus stops to take on passengers, that the cyclist is full of righteous rage, shouting and pushing his way on to the bus, past a woman paying her fare, to punch the driver in the face.

It wasn't the first time bus drivers have had to contend with irrational cyclists. This cat-and-mouse game has been going on for almost three years, since the T-way was built. The RTA has done nothing to address the problem. Now Waller says drivers are so fed up they are calling a protest meeting next week. "There's been verbal abuse, drivers spat at, punched through the bus window. The RTA are aware of it but we're bringing it to a head next week. ''Bus drivers don't have a problem with cyclists, but that's a 15-tonne vehicle they're driving around. If you want to use the road you need to respect the road rules and other users. There's an element of cyclists that don't respect anybody." Neither motorists nor cyclists ever wanted a civil war. But hostilities were fed by the lies told by the Government and the RTA, which gave cyclists unreasonable expectations and ideas above their station. The former roads minister Carl Scully, a vegetarian cyclist, threw $250 million at the lobby, further fuelling expectations which were dashed by subsequent roads ministers. Most bike paths turned out to be little more than white paint on a road, with no room for a bike between parked cars and traffic. But they sent a signal to cyclists that motorists were somehow in the wrong.

There was a cycleway promised on the North-West T-way, but the reality turned out to be less than cyclists had in mind, with big gaps, traffic lights and intersections along the way. This caused an outbreak of vandalism and, as we saw last week, civil disobedience by cyclists with an inflated sense of importance. Attempts to retrofit roads to allow equal access to bikes and pedestrians just makes them more dangerous and simply adds to Sydney's already woeful gridlock. Bikes and pedestrians are allowed on to roads only under the good graces of motorists, and only when they do not pose a traffic hazard. The ideologues who have fostered the road-sharing lie must think a few dead cyclists and pedestrians are a small price to pay for getting cars off the road, because that is their ultimate aim: to make driving so unpleasant, slow, expensive and fraught with hazards that motorists give up. So far, all they have done is create a dangerous sense of entitlement among other road users. Harold Scruby and his Pedestrian Council are much to blame for the attitude that far from sharing the road, cars are there under sufferance. Pedestrians no longer stop and wait for cars to slow before launching themselves on to a zebra crossing. They stride out, like Moses parting the Red Sea, expecting cars to defy the laws of physics. The result is an increase in pedestrian injury.

Oxford Street reportedly has become a late-night killing zone, due to the arrogance of jaywalkers who think it is their god-given right to cross wherever they please. Councils have been forced to erect ugly kerbside fences to protect jaywalkers from themselves. And that's not to even mention the ridiculous turfing of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday, which caused traffic pile-ups of two to three hours of delay on the north shore. This was one of Nathan Rees's most memorable achievements: to close down one of Australia's busiest routes at huge expense to the taxpayer. To lay tens of thousands of metres of kikuyu grass so a few people could have a picnic (with no view) in the middle of the bridge rather than at any number of beautiful natural parklands around Sydney. The Premier was ecstatic, proclaiming the tourism benefits of attracting people from as far away as, oh, Thornleigh. ''This is Sydney at its very best and another extraordinary event proving we can do anything,'' Rees said. It does prove there is no limit to the bread-and-circuses desperation of the State Government.

But under the Government-sponsored jollity of the day there was a not-so-subtle message: that even the most crucial and iconic roads do not belong to cars. Loading They can and will be reclaimed for frivolous purposes at any time. devinemiranda@hotmail.com