Your "Raspberry" directed at scofflaw cyclists and pedestrians missed one of its targets and perpetuated the myth that cyclists are always to blame when they get hit by cars. Perhaps an appropriate replacement for the first sentence of your raspberry should be "Raspberries to drivers, cyclists and pedestrians who cannot follow the rules, and refuse to extend common courtesy to each other."

I think if you do your research you will find that the majority of bicycle/car accidents occur because cars do not properly yield the right-of-way to cyclists. I recently learned that over the summer there were three bicycle/car collisions on UNC campus. In all three, the driver was at fault for cutting off a cyclist who had the right-of-way.

On my morning ride to work today, I had to hit the brakes to avoid a classic right-hook (a car makes a right turn, cutting off a cyclist in the bike lane) at Pittsboro Street. A few minutes after avoiding this driver's mistake, I got to the light at McCauley and Columbia, where I joined two other cyclists (two of us east-bound, one west-bound) waiting patiently with traffic to go with the light. If I take accounting like you did in your column this morning, it is only the driver of the car that "hooked" me who deserves the raspberry.

It is easy to watch for scofflaws and then direct one's raspberries at an entire class -- particularly when you are not a member of that class. Drivers deserve their share of the blame for bicycle/car collisions. So perhaps the Department of Public Safety should give one third of their T-shirts to people behind the wheel, and the Chapel Hill News can give out another raspberry. Better yet, maybe drivers, cyclists and pedestrians could all show some respect for each other.

Drew Coleman

Chapel Hill