There’s no selfish oaf like a Hogger Jogger or Lycra Lout

POLICE investigating the Putney Jogger have made an arrest. Good. Whatever happens next, the keep fit freak who pushed a woman out of his way and into the path of a bus might think twice about doing his worst on the London streets again.

The footage of the incident, captured by a traffic camera, was particularly shocking.

Only quick reflexes from the driver saved the 33- year- old woman from being run over, her skull pancaked by the nearside wheel of a 12-ton double- decker bus packed with passengers.

Yesterday’s arrest suggests that the police, at least, took the incident seriously — and thank goodness for that. In many quarters, this neardeath of an innocent pedestrian had been treated as a bit of a joke.

There was a larky discussion of jogging etiquette on Radio 4’s Today programme, where no one pointed out that Jog Rule No. 1 should simply be; thou shalt not kill.

Meanwhile, Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine is in trouble for starting a supposed-tobe hilarious online Twitter poll to guess the profession of the jogger. Jeremy’s theory is that the man is a banker, because Jeremy doesn’t like bankers.

HOWEVER,Jeremy is a cyclist, and lots of us don’t like them either. Especially those ghastly Lycra Louts who join Hogger Joggers and other uber-blokes who seem to revel in claiming any public space as their own personal fiefdom.

Make way, manspreading he- oaf coming through!

Yes, I know. Women can be just as bad.

I’ve had enough run-ins with yoga mums in Lululemon leggings (there’s a yoga centre near my home) to know that it is unwise to come between them and their double- parked Chelsea tractor, but you have to confront them anyway. Just to see the shock register in their eyes that the perfect arc of their day is, however momentarily, going to be thwarted.

and like Mr Putney, there seems to be an increasing amount of joggers who think they have a divine right not to deviate from their chosen path as they thump-thump along city pavements.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I have stepped aside to let them past, with little acknowledgement or thanks. But cyclists are the worst. I’m mightily sick of cyclists, always male, with nostrils flaring like raging bulls and calves as big as ostrich eggs as they surge through our cities and towns on roads that were never built to accommodate them.

There is a palpable sense of grievance and rage should you dare to get in their way, while those equipped with helmet- cameras are quick to accuse others of traffic crimes and misdemeanours.

But shouldn’t they get their own bike shed in order first?

For a start, sort out the lawbreakers in the swarm, who sail past ‘no cycling’ signs, ride two abreast and mow down straggling pedestrians when they move off before the traffic lights turn green.

also, something must be done to appease fed-up motorists who argue that cyclists should have to pay road tax, have third party insurance and be identified by licence-plates, just like them.

Cycling is a one-way street, it seems, where the needs of the two-wheeled trump the wants of everyone else.

New research suggests that middleaged male cyclists get a sense of peace and better mental wellbeing, but what about the rest of us? and if that is indeed true, why do so many of them behave as if they were permanently hovering just a few spokes short of a full metal fury? Of course, they are not alone in their wrath. Cycling rage and jogging rage join road rage, parking rage, air rage, trolley rage, queue rage, neighbour rage, garden boundary and ‘ who left the milk out of the fridge’ rage.

and all of it is predicated by selfishness and a lack of fellow feeling for others.

The Lycra Louts are the same people who drive their cars badly, talk loudly in the cinema, recline their seats on planes, manspread on the Tube, beep their horns for no good reason and eat the last Rolo.

They spread the Marmite of casual vandalism on the muffin of civilised society, bulldozing their way through life without thinking of anyone but themselves, and with no regard for the personal space of others.

ALLthat matters to them is that they have the right to do what they want, when they want, and woe betide anyone who gets in their way.

How did this happen to the nation of the dunkirk spirit and ‘no — after, you, please’?

Personally, I blame mobile phones. They cut people off from society around them, making them less aware and uninterested in their surroundings. Instead of engaging with, and minding out for, other human beings, phone addicts are lost in their own little world; safe inside the parameters of a tiny, blinking screen where they are sovereign of all they survey and everything is about them.

No one is in the moment any more, to the detriment of us all.

Yet chivalry and kindness are not dead! I see random acts of courtliness nearly every day, sometimes even from cyclists.

People will still stand up for others on buses and trains, help the elderly with their luggage, and wrestle a buggy downstairs for a harassed young parent.

Yet sometimes I think we will soon all be swept away by the mass selfishness of others, and that we are only a thin lip of civilisation on a roaring maw of brutishness.

The decline of good manners and rise of oafishness is a terrible thing.

However, cyclists, joggers, drivers and road-hoggers — watch out for us, because we are tired of watching out for you.