“Pushbike riders,” he said. Not with an exclamation mark, or any particular punctuation at all: not even a passive-aggressive ellipsis … He said it matter-of-factly, as a statement of the bleeding obvious.

Cyclists are vulnerable and drivers can be distracted, careless and inattentive – but only rarely malicious. Credit:Leigh Henningham

He would have been in his late 50s or early 60s, a wiry, weatherbeaten type in building-site high-vis who was in some way connected to whatever building-site activity was going on behind the hoardings and temporary fencing that was squeezed beside the Upfield bike path near Anstey station.

He had wandered absent-mindedly onto the path and been given a gentle ding-ding by the young woman cyclist he was about to absent-mindedly wander into.

“Pushbike riders,” I thought as I swerved around high-vis, building-site man. What a load of meaning gets shovelled into those two words.