EACH Christmas, I always find myself looking back over the events of the past year and wondering what the next 12 months will bring.

Certainly I think about the people who are no longer with us, but this year I have been thinking specifically about the cyclists who have lost their lives on our roads.

It has seemed at times you couldn’t pick up a newspaper without reading about another cycling casualty.

The horrors of the accidents that ended in fatalities have been most heart-wrenching for me and all other cyclists I know and my thoughts go out to the families of those cyclists who were affected.

Of course, I worry about myself or someone I know one day hitting the headlines in such a tragedy but it doesn’t stop me cycling.

Arguably there will only be more casualties and not fewer if cycling increases (that is, if nothing is done to make the roads safer for the more vulnerable users of the highways).

Worryingly, I am 32 years old, and by that I don’t simply mean I’m no spring chicken any more.

No, it’s just I am at a greater risk of having a cycling accident on an Oxfordshire road.

The Oxfordshire County Council road casualty statistics for 2010 show that the greatest numbers of accidents for cyclists involved those in the 30 to 39 age bracket.

But not only am I the wrong age, I live in the wrong place too, with the council’s report suggesting that the city of Oxford has the greatest cyclist casualty rate compared with other places in the county.

Now obviously this corresponds with the extra number of cyclists on the roads around the city but it still doesn’t help me.

However, it could also be that I am a member of the wrong gender as well.

Over the past year, a number of deaths have involved female cyclists and lorries, indeed the statistics would seem to indicate a very real connection, and this is clearly disturbing and worthy of more investigation.

So why are female cyclists so vulnerable when riding near lorries?

Some people speculate we are less assertive riders and therefore tend to be less visible, some say we ride in the gutter and sneak up on the inside of lorries to overtake, only to become invisible and then trapped when the lorry decides to turn left.

Men, it turns out, are more likely to overtake lorries on the outside.

So if, like me, you are aged 30 to 39, cycling regularly in the city and of the female gender, don’t give up cycling because of the dangers.

This Christmas stay ‘On Yer Bike’, but stay safe, stay clear of HGVs, stay visible and stay alive.