Illustration by John Sadler www.johnsadlerillustration.com 

• I AGREE that the menace of abandoned hire bikes/scooters has now reached ridiculous proportions.

In my area, any day of the week one can see on main or side roads at least three, usually more, abandoned bikes, just dumped.

I cannot see how offenders can be prosecuted unless there is some form of ID they have to enter to start the bikes.

The answer to me is obvious. In the same way that offenders can be fined for fly-tipping, local authorities should fine the hire companies for each bike dumped, treating this as litter, and the hire companies should have daily van or carrier patrols that find and remove dumped bikes.

Daily monitoring could be covered by traffic wardens reporting in to their base the location of any offending bikes.

The combination of both would soon clear streets of this menace, made worse by many of the bikes tipped over and lying on the ground blocking pavements even further.

Many of these are extremely heavy to put upright and fines should be proportionate to that. In any case it is surely in the interests of the hire companies to rescue their property so it can be properly used again.

JOHN STRATTON
Address supplied