A dumped Lime bike at Warren Street

• I READ with dismay your further report of the public nuisance caused by individuals failing to return hire bikes to the correct location and concur with your headline, (…the wheels are already coming off £1m crackdown, October 26).

It will surprise few who know the London area well that this so-called “crackdown” would fail as the local authorities concerned are concentrating upon issuing fines to the users of the bicycles, as opposed to the hire companies.

As I have previously stated, this will have no effect upon those who use stolen credit cards or have been able to tamper with the security mechanism of the bikes as they are effectively untraceable.

I suspect that the contracts signed are heavily weighted in favour of the hire companies and prohibit councils from fining them or seizing dumped bicycles. Nevertheless this is the only solution to this problem.

The powerful cycling lobby appears to believe that pedestrians should give way to cyclists, thus flouting the Highway Code, as proven by the despicable assault upon your reader Charles Sears, by a pavement cyclist, (The pavement cyclist who turned attacker, October 26).

I spoke to the proprietor of a Bloomsbury café who said dumped bicycles in front of his premises are disrupting his business and causing a safety hazard.

Compulsory insurance and registration plates should be required of all cyclists. With elections forthcoming next year, it would be wise to question each candidate as to their intentions in this regard.

KEELEY-JASMINE CAVENDISH
Address supplied