Value of Hazard-Oriented Vision (HOV): One recent case of how HOV saved me

This is my 11th year of motorcycling. Somehow, as each year passes, I find motorcycling less and less alarming to myself, as compared to my first few dramatic years.

Are Singapore roads getting safer? Are drivers now more aware of motorcyclists? Are all the TP advertisements finally working? I thought to myself. Then great! There's no need for me to tell people about HOV anymore. Save my time and effort.

Or it feels safer now because I am just getting more numb to danger? This I worry. 'cause I fear I can no longer spot and react to danger when the time comes.

Then on Monday 3 Sep 2.00 pm. All these thinking got wiped off.

I was riding out of my house in my STX1300 Pan European. The usual route that I would take to AYE. I probably done that thousands of times liao.

800 m out of my house, I am approaching a T-junction with a traffic light. I am on the major road and going straight in the T.

Light is green in my favour and I am going straight. It is 2.00 pm in the afternoon. There is not a single car around the T-junction as I approached it.

Still, it's my practice to always slow down to a speed that I can e-brake and stop whenever approaching any traffic light even if it is green, and I did just that. So probably I dropped from 70 to doing 50kmh.

As I approach the T-junction, a blue Wish appears on the left-turning split lane of the T-junction. That is, the Wish is on my left, about 100m in front. It starts out going from my left to right and is trying to turn to its left, trying to join the straight road and same direction as me.

I could see the driver is an average looking guy about 30 yrs old, with an average looking wife beside him, sitting in this average car.

He turned his head and looked at my direction and at me, as both of us converged.

Nothing seems amissed. Until he doesn't seem to be slowing down as he negotiates his filter lane. He is moving to join the main straight as if the way is clear and I am not present.

Yet he is looking at me all the while. I am riding a HUGH 300kg Pan European, with a tall windscreen, with very powerful twin headlights that lights up the night, with a colouful helmet.

Our vehicles are really going to meet each other.

Thank God for HOV.
Any junction is a potential hazard as it is an opportunity for traffic to cross your path, even if you have the right of way and there are no vehicles.
Any vehicle, car or bike, approaching a junction or stationary at a junction, is a hazard because it can move into your way, for whatever reason, as in this case.

So I was already on alert right from the beginning. I start to brake hard and blared my twin snail horns. BBBBBOORRRRRR!!!! Yet the Wish continued. And the driver did not seem to register at all.

I braked until finally almost coming to a stop but still before the exit of the Wish. And it is only at this time, the Wish suddenly realised and jammed brake.

I looked at the driver in disbelief as I start to build back my speed and pass the Wish. The driver genuinely looked innocent and had no slightest look of ill intention.

Even if he did not stop in time, I could still stop in time and nothing would have happened. Thanks to ingrained-HOV sense.


If I had not have HOV sensing, I would not have slowed down at the junction as I have every right of way. Then I would not have been able to slow down in time. And the ending would be a smashed up Wish but ok driver and passenger, but with a wecked STX and a rider on the floor. And another just statistics in the TP report.


Parting Shots

No songs this time. You may be like me. Never knowing the Bible is the master at dispensing advices on Love.

Check out these few brief but highly meaning full verses!


Three things will last forever--faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love.

Corinthians 13:13



Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable and it keeps no record of being wronged.
It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up,never loses faith, is always hopeful,
and endure through every circumstance.

Corinthians 13:4



For love is as strong as death.
...
Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame.
Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it.

Song of songs 8:6


Last but not least, Shakespeare, JK ROwling...some of the greatest writers of all time, none of whom has written about motorcycles. Instead, try this song by Meatloaf (the rock band) which combines love with motorcycling and reasonate when we ride...




Bat out of Hell

I'm gonna hit the highway
like a baterring ram
On a silver black phantom bike
When the metal is hot and the engine is hungry
...

Well I can see myself
Tearing up the road
Faster than any boy has ever gone
When my skin is raw but my soul is ripe
And no ones gonna stop me now
I'm gonna make my escape
But I can't stop thinking of you
And I never see the sudden curve until it's
way too late.


Excerpt from Bike Magazine Sep 2007