Chennai: Five days ago, a 38-year-old woman from Chennai was killed in an accident in Bangalore after being knocked down by a cab when she was cycling to work. Accidents are common on the roads and cyclists have always had to take extra care as they are seldom respected on the roads. Residents say Chennai is not a cyclist friendly city.
Cyclists take special care to wear protective gear but can do little to protect themselves from speeding motorists, said Partha Datta, who has his own cycling club, Madras Randonneurs. Cyclists are mostly hit by motor cycle riders. “Motor bike riders on regular roads and large vehicles like trucks on national highways are who we are worried about. Since motorists also ride on the left side of the road, they end up ramming into us. As city roads are crowded, we use national highways to ride but speeding trucks cause accidents,” explained Datta.
“In Singapore, big vehicles have to give way to cyclists and if they don’t they are penalised. Sometimes when we approach a police station we are questioned as to why we were riding there,” said Datta. Even as speeding vehicles are cyclists’ nightmare, they have to be wary of muggers. There have been recent instances of cyclists getting mugged. “Those who rob us know that we will most probably be carrying a mobile phone in our arm band and all our accessories are also quite expensive. If we happen to be riding alone we are completely defenseless. The thieves just suddenly come out of nowhere and snatch the arm band and zoom off,” said
Ganesh Janakirman, an endurance cyclist, who was also a victim of a hit and run last month. Besides mugging, cyclists are also made fun off, while some yell out names others threaten to hit them, “Once somebody threw stones on us. Men get harassed and one can only wonder what women have to deal with. During all our long distance rides, we make sure all our female cyclists have company and don’t ride alone,” added Janakiraman.
“Once, two young men on a bike came close to me and the pillion rider put out his leg to try and trip me over,” said Roy Subramoney “Motorists are the least considerate to cyclists. I travel quite widely for work so I can see how cyclists are treated in other countries, and in Europe and Australia they have a separate track for cyclists. If the sport is encouraged motorists would be more careful on the roads,” he said.
