Like people who are scared of the eight-legged terrors that insist on making the coving around the ceiling their domain, I have a phobia.

Unfortunately, unlike other minority groups who reside in beautiful Brighton and Hove, where I can buy a Big Issue whenever my heart desires, no efforts have been made by the powers that be to help me overcome my terrible disability.

I am jealous I am not gay. I have no clubs to go to or helplines to spew my worries to.

Bicycle lanes and rows and rows of green-bonneted carriages controlled by overweight men seemingly oblivious to normal road regulations all stifle me and point me in a direction

I do not want to go. Armies of black-hat-wearing, computer-wielding traffic regulators label my car as parked incorrectly or in one place for too long. They are all after me - they all want me to get ... the bus.

I feel ill just thinking of the days when my life was blighted by having to wait for the red, black and cream-emblazoned horrors to pull alongside me, open their sideways grin at me and invite me inside.

Oh, the dread as whooping-cough kid sits behind me, the mother seemingly oblivious as other offspring dart around the mobile hellhole and, oh, the pain as tennis boy hits me in the shoulder with his bag as he staggers off, holding on to the bars for dear life.

I am making a heartfelt plea. Please, do not make driving any harder. I could not cope having to endure such sorrow. Busophobia is a terrible thing.

-Dusty Fryer, Kings Road Arches, Brighton