Bicycles Are Not Cars

Once upon a time, when Singaporeans were a wee bit less uptight, they used to laugh at themselves. The well worn joke about bad drivers (typically told by non-drivers) is that they tend to be old, female or Indian. But the worst driver of all is an old Indian woman. In current context the stand up comedian will be hauled up in court for being sexist, racist and downright disrespectful to our senior citizens. Don't expect the Law Minister to go to bat for you.

The reality today is that it's a jungle out there on our roads. When a motorist toggles the turn indicator, it means he has just executed a turn, not merely expressing an intent to make a turn. Forget about maintaining 6 car lengths behind the front vehicle when travelling at 60 kph - nature abhors a vacuum. Even when you are the model road user, always staying in lane, maintaining speed limits, there's no guarantee some red Ferrari won't collide with you for an insurance claim. Given such stressful driving conditions, does the motorist really have to put up with a 1.5 metre cycling lane on our already narrow, congested roadways?

Granted, more may have to downgrade from four wheels to two, given the relentless climb of the COE, but there is this potential health hazard of breathing the incomplete combustibles from the automotive exhausts. Cycling can be a pleasurable form of exercise, when the routes are at recreational parks or outlying nature reserves where the air is fresh and clean. Only idiots and retards will peddle downtown, at the peak of rush hour traffic, wallowing in the toxic fumes. And when they cycle three, or four, abreast, you know they are just out to be a nuisance to the real road users, the people who have to pay road tax, hurrying to work, or sending their kids to school. A bicycle is not a car, nor should it behave exactly like one because of one important difference: the danger to the operator. Even at slow speeds, cyclists can easily break bones or even die in a collision.

The author of "How to Not Get Hit by Cars" has a bit of practical advice for those insisting on competing with cars for roadspace, "Sure, cyclists have a right to the road. But that's a small consolation when you're dead."