Bicycles - where do they belong?

I had learnt how to cycle when I was young.  Gosh, I cannot really remember when that happened.  Neither can I remember what bicycles I used to ride.  How many times did I fall?  Can’t remember.  The most recent time when I laid my hands on the two-wheeled mode of transport was when my elder children wanted to cycle at the void deck.  Okay, they were actually four-wheelers.  But I do see a lot of them around in Jurong...

Ring...  Ring, Ring!  Yet another impatient cyclist rang his bell incessantly at me and Felix, telling us to give way to him on the footpath we were walking on.  Wait!  It's a 'footpath'!  So whose right of way is it?  They definitely do not belong on the tarred-roads, where cars sometimes zoom around at breakneck-speeds.  Where are they supposed to go?

Let's examine what they were made for.  They were invented in 1817 by German Baron Karl van Drais as the first human means of transport.  There are many uses for the bicycle, from leisure to work (think delivery), from recreation to sport, etc.   There are different types of them too.  The tricycles, normal bicycles, mountain bikes, racers, etc.  Not forgetting the unicycles, the single-wheeled ones!

I read with interest the discussions on the sharing of path by pedestrians and bicycles, and the later idea of a separate lane for bicycles being mooted.  It was tried out and well-received in Tampines earlier, and a few town centres are slated to have the paths built too.

Here in Jurong, there have not been any ‘bicycle paths’, so most of the time, they ‘share’ footpaths with pedestrians.  They irk me when they ride fast and ‘demand’ ‘walkers’ to move to the side for them.  I secretly wish they use the roads.  But when I’m driving on the leftmost lane, I would wish for them not to be there.  Where do they go then?  Children cycling in the shared space within the few blocks of flats at my place sometimes go too fast, disregarding the safety of children and old folks walking on the paths they choose to cycle on.  What are their parents doing?

The other week when they were having the four-day marking-day break, I was on the road in the neighbourhood when I came across a group of four Malay boys cycling without putting helmets on.  They spread out along the left-most lane, racing each other and joking at the same time.  When they noticed that I was approaching them, they went back to the side slowly, still joking and laughing.  That brought me to ask where they should be…