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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Why S'pore must license bicycles now
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I REFER to Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport Teo Ser Luck's response in Parliament to MP Ang Mong Seng's suggestion of licensing bicycles ('Better cycling facilities in five neighbourhoods', Feb 13).
The opinion that licence plates for bicycles may be neither practical nor feasible prompts the question: Has it been seriously considered and researched? How can a system be judged to be impractical or unfeasible when it was in place up to some 30 years ago, and we now have access to advanced technologies which can solve problems of inefficiency? All that is needed is creativity and political will.
Improving pedestrian and cyclist behaviour is a communicator's nightmare when it involves attitudinal change, and a pipe dream when this change is expected from many.
More than half of those using bicycles as regular transport are not a typical audience responsive to public education. I do not mean leisure cyclists, those running the occasional errand in the neighbourhood, or yuppy commuters cycling to the MRT station, who can be reached by the usual media. I am talking about older folk, foreign workers and students.
There is no disincentive for flouting the law by people brought up in cultures and times different from that of the main population. Just look at cyclists on bicycles without headlights or reflectors, going against traffic flow, speeding through bus stops, across zebra crossings and down pedestrian paths.
We are told ad nauseam we can report 'reckless' cyclists. But how do we do that?
My experience in Belgium and Holland, and my sister's in Paris, have been that no self-respecting cyclist would ride along a pedestrian path on a bicycle without headlights or reflectors. No licensing is needed in Europe because of more than a century of cycling culture. Town planning there is done with cyclist and pedestrian safety in mind. How can Singapore be compared with European cities?
A child had to die before we had better seat-belt safety. Is this what it will take before cyclist and pedestrian safety arrives in Singapore?
Amy Loh (Ms)
Un zua? I jiat liao bee u buay song ah? *chey*
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I REFER to Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport Teo Ser Luck's response in Parliament to MP Ang Mong Seng's suggestion of licensing bicycles ('Better cycling facilities in five neighbourhoods', Feb 13).
The opinion that licence plates for bicycles may be neither practical nor feasible prompts the question: Has it been seriously considered and researched? How can a system be judged to be impractical or unfeasible when it was in place up to some 30 years ago, and we now have access to advanced technologies which can solve problems of inefficiency? All that is needed is creativity and political will.
Improving pedestrian and cyclist behaviour is a communicator's nightmare when it involves attitudinal change, and a pipe dream when this change is expected from many.
More than half of those using bicycles as regular transport are not a typical audience responsive to public education. I do not mean leisure cyclists, those running the occasional errand in the neighbourhood, or yuppy commuters cycling to the MRT station, who can be reached by the usual media. I am talking about older folk, foreign workers and students.
There is no disincentive for flouting the law by people brought up in cultures and times different from that of the main population. Just look at cyclists on bicycles without headlights or reflectors, going against traffic flow, speeding through bus stops, across zebra crossings and down pedestrian paths.
We are told ad nauseam we can report 'reckless' cyclists. But how do we do that?
My experience in Belgium and Holland, and my sister's in Paris, have been that no self-respecting cyclist would ride along a pedestrian path on a bicycle without headlights or reflectors. No licensing is needed in Europe because of more than a century of cycling culture. Town planning there is done with cyclist and pedestrian safety in mind. How can Singapore be compared with European cities?
A child had to die before we had better seat-belt safety. Is this what it will take before cyclist and pedestrian safety arrives in Singapore?
Amy Loh (Ms)
Un zua? I jiat liao bee u buay song ah? *chey*
