In his letter ‘Evidence for safer roads’ (March 23) Jean Karl Soler questions some of the sources of the datapresented by the Bicycling Advocacy Group. True it is almost a national shame that statistics for cyclingare largely collected by a voluntary NGO and not the State. We do thison the basis of what gets measured, gets managed.

Soler will be delighted to know, however, that apart from counting people on bicycles and pedelecs, and the only reliable way to do this is to well, stand on a corner and count bicycles and pedelecs, which rose overall in 2015 by 20 per cent, is that the rest of the data we use comes from very reliable and robust statistical sources.

For instance, we know that traffic accidents in general for all other road users (other than cyclists), rose by more than seven per cent in 2015. This is according to official figures released by the National Statistics Office.

However, although the NSO do not collate this data for people on bicycles, the number of cycling accidents are recorded by the National Police System database. This recorded a fall in cycling-related accidents of 22 per cent in 2015 and if we are guilty of anything, it is of being conservative in our releases.

So the bottom line is that cycling does appear to be getting safer, but can we really say the same of other traffic? The good news is that we seem to be getting something right with our promotional campaigns and tips on safe cycling. Making cycling easier and safer.

Cycling has the added benefit of making people fitter and healthier, and also actively reducing traffic congestion. This is because the key to reducing congestion is in reducing the number of car trips people make. We do this, much like counting bicycles, voluntarily, and we make no apologies for this.