Monster On Two Wheels

The big "W" behind is for Wanker

Parliamentary Secretary for Transport and Health Dr Faishal's Facebook post about a road bully of Australian origin rings a bell: "Instead of assigning blame, it is important for us to remember that we must be gracious and respect one another on the roads."

It has to be a paraphrase of Member of Parliament (Tampines GRC) Baey Yam Keng's ringing endorsement of PRC scholar Sun Xu's diatribe (“There are more dogs than people in Singapore”) directed at our senior citizens: "We need to reflect upon ourselves, are we the way they described?"

It all looks so familiar: Foreigner Talents 1, Singaporeans 0.

Faishal's expressed rapport is for a serial cyclist offender, striking terror into motorists unfortunate to share the same roads. The housewife was driving home to her condominium at Keppel Bay when she had a brush with the monster on wheels: “He was violent, aggressive and used vulgarities. He even threatened at one point that he’d make sure I got my licence revoked.” The guy who is giving Aussies a bad name banged his fist on her car window, and reached in to open the door. The New Paper quoted Kenneth's version of the run in, “She tried to run me over.” He claims to have started cycling at age 3, dating his terrorist days all the way to the kindergarten sand pit.

Just last week, my female colleague was flabbergasted when a Caucasian jogger ran straight into the side of her stationary SUV, and then hurled invectives at her for being in his way. Unlike Kenneth's milder victim, she gave him a tongue lashing and threatened to call the cops if he persisted with the nonsense. The best way to treat such abominations is to face them down, not take the contemplative route advocated by Faisal and Baey.

Although a police report has been made, it remains to be seen if the road bully will get away with a slap on the wrist. For all we know, the parliamentarians may use the incident to initiate a "Be Kind To Foreign Talents" campaign, tapping the $10 million fund made available to the National Integration Council for the welcoming party for foreigners. Channel NewsAsia (CNA) quoted the police as saying "appropriate actions will be taken against the parties involved if they are found to have flouted any rules", implying that the motorist could be taken to task for not being sympathetic to road users who cannot afford a $100K COE.