Let’s face it, there are few human traits more unattractive than smugness.

The woman who emerges from her changing room to inform the sales assistant — and anyone within earshot — that she thinks she might need a smaller size; the person next to you at dinner whose bread roll remains untouched; the smirk of the parking ticket attendant as he watches you careering unflatteringly along the pavement, safe in the knowledge his commission is in the bank.

All maddening. But there is one creature whose smugness exceeds all of these. A creature so infuriatingly, throat- throttlingly , red-mist-inducingly smug that even a vegan yoga teacher might feel the urge to slap them across the chops with an organic celery stick: the militant cyclist.

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Caught on camera: The woman who was captured eating her cereal behind the wheel this week

Also known as the Cycle Stasi, you see them everywhere now, these self-appointed, two-wheeled, holier-than-thou angels of the road. Whippet thin — they can eat only ethically sourced food-stuffs cultivated in the rarefied soil of the moral high ground — they glide through the rush-hour traffic like swallows snatching flies off a herd of wildebeest.

Their speed and determination is impressive. At traffic lights they sit, every sinew, every nerve-ending awaiting the moment where they can push off — and proceed at a pace scientifically proven to send even the driver of an electrically powered mobility device deranged with frustration.

Sartorially illiterate and with a penchant for cladding their genitals in man-made fibres (why any of them ever bother with Day-Glo is beyond me — the glow of their inner self-righteousness ought to be enough to illuminate the dimmest of streets), they have not a care for their fellow road-users.

Those forced to fall in line behind them must observe, with grim fascination, as buttock grinds against buttock, sweat gathers in disturbing pools and flesh quivers up against one’s bumper.

Show insufficient respect for their God-given right to wobble their way into your path without so much as a gesture of warning, and they will flick your door mirror, bang on the windscreen, utter obscenities into your face.

These people aren’t cyclists. Cyclists are people with baskets full of dogs or shopping. They are normal people, dressed normally, going about the normal business of getting from A to B.

Cycle Stasi: Many now wear head cameras

They’re cycling because they haven’t got far to go, or because they like the fresh air and the exercise, or because they don’t own a car or they don’t much like taking the bus.

They’re not trying to prove a point, or make a political statement. They’re just pedalling along through life like the rest of us.

Not so this new breed of Lycra-clad moral vigilantes, who nowadays seldom straddle their beloved carbon-fibre constructions without an Orwellian head-cam on top — all the better to film and report civilian misdemeanours.

I’ve never met David Williams, 47, but I have an awful feeling I wouldn’t like him much (nor, to be fair, he me ). For despite being a cycling instructor and father-of-two from Surbiton, he exhibits all the symptoms of being a fully paid-up member of the Cycling Stasi.

Mr Williams, you see, is the man who this week captured a picture on the camera of his helmet of a woman eating cereal while at the wheel of her car, and shopped her to the authorities.

Eating cereal at 8.45am in a traffic jam. A bit mad, I’ll grant you. But I can’t help finding that silly driver a lot less offensive than priggish Mr Williams. Justifying his decision to share his film of her on the internet, and report her to the police, he explained: ‘I’m passionate about road safety and I don’t feel she should be able to get away with this. When you see something this idiotic you just want to share it with the world. ’

He went on to describe the full horror of the cereal offender.

‘She looked like a normal, everyday mum on the school run. Then I saw her putting spoonfuls of cereal in her mouth, holding the wheel with one hand. I encouraged her to put the bowl down. It was quite bonkers,’ he said, adding: ‘I think maybe it was porridge or muesli.’

I’ll tell you what’s bonkers. Mr Williams and his ridiculous helmet-cam, the new must-have accessory for any militant cyclist hellbent on reporting errant motorists for slights, both real and perceived.

Of course, there are many times when motorists behave in ways which are selfish and inconsiderate of other road users. But this new trend for carefully edited video footage of misbehaving motorists, which is positively encouraged by police who provide cyclists with clear instructions on how to report offences, strikes me as rather sinister. A sneaks’ charter for cyclists, if you will.

What’s also bonkers is the many and assorted champions of smugness who not only approve of Mr Williams’s deliberate humiliation of another human being, but who have also instigated a social media witch-hunt in order to bring our muesli-munching criminal mum to justice.

I could perhaps understand his zeal had she been doing 40 miles an hour in a pedestrian zone. But she was clearly queuing in traffic, moving forward at a snail’s pace and quite possibly stuck at lights. What better time to catch up on breakfast?

Normal cyclists do so because they haven’t got far to go, or because they like fresh air and exercise (file image)

Yes, I know having an actual bowl of milk and cereal is pushing it. But it’s a well-known fact traffic lights are not there to control the flow of traffic. They are there to give mothers on the school run a chance to take a slurp from their coffee, chastise the kids in the back, check their hair in the rear-view mirror or generally catch their breath after the morning’s dramas.

Personally, I like to hit as many red lights as I can in the morning — it gives me a chance to do my make-up. I choose my route with care, so as to catch one or two especially lengthy red lights for my foundation and eyeliner.

On the shorter ones I do lipstick and hair — a much speedier operation — and give the car a general tidy after the tornado of the school run.

Personally, I like to hit as many red lights as I can in the morning — it gives me a chance to do my make-up. I choose my route with care, so as to catch one or two especially lengthy red lights for my foundation and eyeliner

I have been driving now for more than 25 years, and have not had a single accident (touch wood) while at the wheel. Granted, a lorry once backed onto my bonnet, and I have had my car stolen and set fire to — but I’ve never caused an injury to another human being on the road.

Specifically, I have never cycled at breakneck speed along a pavement, almost slicing a small child in half. Nor have I repeatedly jumped the lights, mown down a pedestrian on a zebra crossing, ridden to school with my child on the handlebars, cycled while drunk, under the influence of drugs or on my mobile phone, overtaken on the inside lane in the pouring rain, driven without my lights on or held onto the back of a double-decker bus while going round Marble Arch.

These are just some of the things I see cyclists doing on a daily basis. A more lawless tribe of self-righteous hypocrites there could not be.

This weekend they even plonked their sweaty, naked behinds on a batch of Boris bikes to pedal through London to ‘raise awareness’.

Can you imagine the fuss that would be made if the Oxfordshire Hunt decided to ride down Whitehall starkers to protest against the ban on fox hunting?

But oh, no, just because they’re cyclists and they’re saving the sodding planet, they think that gives them carte blanche to be rude to the inhabitants of it.

Mr Williams, if you’re so intent on pursuing criminals on your bicycle (a noble calling, on that we can agree), then why don’t you do something useful with your helmet-cam, and cycle around the streets of Warrington or West London catching actual criminals? No, I didn’t think so.

Of course, there are some terrible car drivers out there; of course, there is too much pollution; of course, there should be more cycle lanes.

Cycling is one of the great joys of life, and too many motorists act like oafs on the road.

But if cycling campaigners want to win people over to their cause, filming frazzled school-run mums having a quick snack at the wheel and then reacting as though they had been caught throttling puppies is not the way to go about it. These sort of tactics make people dig their heels in more.