YOUR article on Operation Close (“Secret cyclist used in safety blitz by police”, The Herald, April 25) seems to me to be exactly the type of heavy police action employed when all else has failed in protecting pedal cyclists from motor vehicles. I feel that this is far from the case and solutions to the dangers posed to cyclists by cars overtaking them have to be more comprehensively explored.

East Dunbartonshire Council has adopted the public realm “shared spaces” concept in Kirkintilloch where cars, cyclists and pedestrians are considered to share the town centre with mutual courtesy. While I accept the scheme is still controversial, I wonder why, if it works for cars, we cannot have a similar scheme in our country footpaths for cycles?

I suggest that when the long-established laws prohibiting cycles using all footpaths were made, the balance between the use and needs of cars and pedestrians was very different to now and country footpaths were relatively busy as many more people walked, for example, to and from work. I suggest that this is seldom now the case and I am certain that if the law was changed such that cycles could use designated country footpaths, provided they physically stopped to one side to give right of way to pedestrians, it would be worth a trial period.

In such circumstances I would certainly advocate the heavy hand of the law if a cyclist, or indeed a pedestrian, failed to comply with the rules of sharing specific re-classified footpaths beside roadways.

Bill Brown,

46 Breadie Drive, Milngavie.

WHILE I am delighted to note the initiative of Police Scotland to protect cyclists from overly close passing by motorists I wonder why it has taken so long, and so many cycling deaths and injuries, for Britain to reach this point. Other nations have been addressing the problem for years.

Still, good luck to the project – better late than never.

Grant Young,

49 Doonvale Drive, Ayr.