I’m walking along a wide pavement on a road close to Belfast city centre. My mind is miles away. Suddenly I spot a heap of freshly minted dog poo and, as most people would do in the circumstances, I swerve to the side to avoid walking in it. Bad move as it turns out.

From behind me comes a hiss, an obviously angry intake of breath.

And then suddenly swerving around me comes a cyclist I’d neither heard nor noticed at my back.

I could have easily knocked him into the road.

He could have just as easily have run me over. Either way it may not have been fatal. But it wouldn’t have been pretty.

Whose fault was it?

Not mine, your honour.

I was proceeding in a central direction on a pavement obviously intended for use by pedestrians.

Here’s the thing though. Not the fault of the cyclist either. For the pavement is clearly marked as being shared by bikers as a cycle route.

It’s just that I wasn’t thinking of cyclists when I made my sharp divert to the left. I can definitely see how the poor man riding along behind me must have been left traumatised — and angry — by our near miss.

But this is what you can expect when you mix together cyclists and pedestrians. The potential for disaster — or at the very least injury — would strike me as pretty obvious.

We have a strange policy on cyclists in Northern Ireland.

One minute we have them on the road battling it out with the other traffic which undoubtedly poses a risk to them.

Next, and this is very often along the same stretch of road, we’re re-routing them up on to the pavement where their greater metal mass now poses a risk to the average foot soldier. It’s not exactly consistent. And it’s not exactly fair to anyone.

Cyclists do get up my nose. Some of them anyway. I have a particular contempt for the Tour de France-at-rush-hour type who takes up an entire lane of traffic with their erratic weaving.

Or who reduce vehicle traffic to five miles an hour as they insist on pedalling laboriously, in a wobbling motion, up a hill that’s obviously got the better of them.

There are bikers out there who should not be let loose on our highways. And they give the rest — the minority that is, who actually observe traffic rules and traffic lights — a bad name.

But while diverting them on to some of our wider pavements makes a certain degree of sense, it comes with its own dangers. Including the one outlined above.

Pedestrians are not always aware that they’re there. Even if there are ruddy great signs every couple of yards pointing out this fact. It’s just the possibility of Lance Armstrong swishing past isn’t always to the forefront of your mind as you walk along.

Our entire approach to provision for cyclists/pedestrians is disjointed.

The official policy towards motor traffic is at least consistent.

Make it hell for drivers.

For push bikers it appears a bit more tolerant but is hardly what you could call satisfactory.

One minute they’re juggling with juggernauts. The next they’re slaloming around baby buggies and walkers dodging the dog dirt.

The potential for somebody to get badly hurt on our pavements is all too obvious.