Like a fish needs a bicycle...

Well okay, I hold my hands up and admit this post actually has nothing to do with fish - I just always liked that expression and have an excuse to use it, given that I am embarking on a rant about bicycles. Focussing primarily on the inability of particularly female cyclists to ride safely around this city. I am fed up with ambling along merrily in my cycle lane and coming up against any of the following:
a. somebody 'pulling out' into the lane without stopping to check if anybody is already hurtling their way along it. Much slamming on of brakes (which reminds me, really should make it so that my bike brakes at least pretend to function).
b. some prat of a person stopping for no reason. No reason at all. Maybe they thought their phone was ringing, maybe a particularly colourful butterfly was speeding past, or maybe they just thought hey, my legs hurt, I'm going to stop for a minute. Someone behind me? Pah, their problem.
c. I was cycling along yesterday behind a girl who I had been trying to overtake for a while but she kept swinging out a tad too far, then, just to add to her obvious stupidity, she randomly pulled onto the pavement and carried on cycling. Awesome - I speed up to pass and she suddenly slams back off the pavement into the cycle lane, causing me to go out into the road and virtually into the path of a car.
There are multiple other scenarios I could detail, but essentially what I'm saying is this: everyone who comes to Oxford with the intention of cycling should be given a road-safety test. And if they fail, they can damn well walk. And have the walking-safety test while they're at it - i.e. LOOK FOR BIKES COMING. Good God, for a city of supposedly intelligent people, there are some mighty dumb ones as well.