WHEN I was aged seven, I believed in fairies; knew next to nothing about history and the cycle of life, but I could ride my bicycle with no hands, and knew how to care for it.

Now aged 71, having cycled all over the UK, and in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Spain, Majorca, and Tenerife, and with Japan on my bucket list, I know a great deal more, and it’s frightening. From aids to xenophobia, has the world gone mad, or is it me?

Fearful of climate change, (for my grandchildren) it begs the question: “What do aborigines and cyclists have in common?”

To answer: On a cycle ride to Knutsford, (80 mile round trip) with seven pals, (two in remission from cancer) little did we know it was a market day (first Sunday of every month); consequently, the ‘village’ was (4x4) gridlocked. But on bicycles, we just politely weaved our way through, and ‘refuelled’ at The Courtyard Coffee House. Also ‘The First Penny Farthing Museum’, it houses the world’s smallest, biggest, and oldest bicycles – all original I was told.

Also, the first bicycle ride took place in Germany on June 12, 1817.

Its inventor Baron Karl von Drais managed a 14km trip in less than an hour – a great deal faster than the traffic in Knutsford, if not on the M60. And, while cycling began in the UK in 1830, the first car journey wasn’t until 1895, when the speed limit was 2mph. With horses the first transport on our roads, and bicycles second, why have motor vehicles (invasive species) been allowed to take over?

Looking back to January 20, 1788: Britain’s first fleet of eleven convict ships arrived in Botany Bay. Now its aborigines, having lived there for thousands of years, much like cyclists, and indeed horse-riders, and children, can’t live normal/ natural lives. Aren’t the world’s roads lawless?

Also, in the UK, there are more than five million asthma sufferers, and in Deli, the air is so polluted that, five million children have been given face masks.

In a nutshell, in fewer than 200 years, greed and speed, and no rest on Sunday, has all but destroyed the natural world, and things can only get worse. So why aren’t we anticar?

Even before they leave the forecourt, they have a bigger carbon footprint than an aborigine generates in a lifetime.

Allan Ramsay Member of RoadPeace, Radcliffe