I regularly am enthusiastic about the prospects of cycling and have commented on the merits and general goodness of riding cycles. I usually write under the assumption that my audience is fairly sensible in terms of understanding and following traffic. I have made comments in earlier posts on selective jumping of red lights, claiming lanes etc… that should be followed only when one is extremely confident of the traffic situation.

Extreme confidence about traffic stems from extreme caution and high awareness of surroundings. If in doubt, a sensible cyclist would not break any traffic rules.

Personally, I do not consider my commuting route to be dangerous. It is probably because of my reasonably developed traffic sense (I used to ride in rules-free Indian traffic) and my awareness of how others behave on the road (I have spent many years riding cycles, motorbikes and cars).

In the past several months, I have come across notices of fatal accidents 3 times along my commuting route. The latest was this morning, near my work place and the victim was a cyclist. Judging from the time of the accident, it is probably someone on their exercise route. I pass by this junction every time I am on the bike to work and would not dare jump the lights (the junction is complex with lots of blind spots and heavy trucks turning).

Though the incident is regrettable, I have seen a pattern with these accidents:

1. They happen in the wee hours – potentially because people are not at their attentive best or the cyclist is not visible enough. Solution: Keep your yes open, If you are tired, try not to be on the road. Get reflective tapes and lights. They can help to draw attention.
2. They happen in large / complex junctions. My theory is that someone was trying to avoid the red and rushing through the junction. If it is night / early morning, there is probably little or no traffic and it is easy to catch up lost time at a junction. There is no need to rush through signals. But drivers seem to not understand this simple rule of catching up. it is also likely that the cyclist did not wish to stop (to keep the heart pumping and the muscles warm or being irreverent to the traffic rules). Either way, it is not worth while.

When I speak to people about cycling, I generally get the attitude of “it is too risky for normal people and I am some kind of adrenalin junkie”. While in reality, it is my means of getting home and if I choose to be safe I can. Anyone for that matter can commute safely without encountering trouble – all it needs is a safe approach to following and breaking rules. End of the day, I find the risks are probably similar to the ones taken by pedestrians and they regularly break rules too.

So if you are planning to incorporate cycling into your work commute or for recreation, do not be disheartened by stories of accidents and take a safe approach to staying on the road.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm and is filed under Singapore, accident, bicycle commuting in singapore, musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.