Momentum junkies

Having traveled in many third world and developing countries I know this; the basic rule of the road in these countries is ‘might is right’.

That is, the larger and heavier vehicle, of a clutch, does what the fuck it wants and the rest get out of the way.

The lowest in the pecking order of vehicles are the pedestrians and cyclists, who are well advised to keep alert and be prepared to duck left or right at any moment when a larger vehicles decides to occupy their space, for convenience sake.

Trouble occurs when drivers trained in this simplistic system arrive in Sydney as skilled migrants (doctors, engineers and the like) but end up driving cabs.

They generally treat cyclists as they did at home and this can cause issues. In truth they have trouble even perceiving cyclists and often get quite confused when the cyclist in their cross-hairs doesn’t magically disappear.

Cyclists are very good at demanding their equal rights on the road often at the expense of their own safety. They can also get awfully angry when someone applies the ‘might is right’ rule against them. As they did to me this morning.

Oddly thought the self-same cyclists, when it suits them, have no compunction about breaking many other road rules for the sake of maintaining momentum. Hypocrites or super-sized pedestrians? I know not which but guess both.