Madam, - Four times within a month, as I cycled down the Dublin quays towards Heuston Station, boys as young as five have attempted to grab my gym bag from the back of my bicycle. One child ran across three lanes in busy traffic and began tugging furiously at the bag until a motorcyclist intervened. Another time, a van driver shouted out of his window to warn me and ward off these little menaces. It was like a scene from Oliver Twist.
What will it take to make Dublin a safer place in which to cycle? A cyclist dragged off his or her bicyle into the path of an articulated lorry as six-year-olds make off with their trophies? - Yours, etc.,
LOUISE LESOVITCH, St Laurence's Road, Chapelizod, Dublin 20.