to a good friend, felix.

rest in peace. you will be missed.

just got an online reply letter from another reader... thanks for the response!

"LTA should come up with more innovative solutions to S. Buona Vista Road hazards"

I REFER to the article, 'Danger drivers at S. Buona Vista Road' (ST, March 22), by Mr Ngoh Seh Suan.

As a daily user as well as a victim of an accident closely resembling the described scenario, I can attest to the dangers faced by drivers and cyclists.

Vehicular traffic has increased over the years with the development of the Science Parks and new housing.

While I have succeeded in getting the LTA to install speed strips, I am afraid that I have been unsuccessful in persuading it to adopt more rigorous measures.

LTA's approach is to install what I feel are 'passive means' such as reflector strips and speed-regulating signs and hoping that road users would be more responsible when using this road and leaving it to the Traffic Police to enforce the rules.

As Mr Ngoh can attest, this has done little to reduce the risks caused by irresponsible road users. It is a common sight to find vehicle part debris along this road but I suspect that many of these accidents go unreported as can be deduced by the statistics LTA has produced to me.

In this regard to responsibility, I appeal to cyclists who use this road daily between 6.30am and 7am to avoid doing so.

While I empathise with them given that Singapore has so few challenging roads available for recreational cycling, their acts not only endanger themselves but also other road users as vehicles try to overtake them.

I appeal to the LTA to come up with more innovative solutions to the dangers that exist along this stretch of road rather than giving the standard replies of that they will monitor the situation and emphasising road user responsibility.

Judging from the increasing number of accidents on our roads, that tact has failed.

Kulgit Singh

as published online on st interactive...

"Danger drivers at S. Buona Vista Road"

ON SUNDAY morning, while taking photos at a mountain-bike race held at the newly opened trail in South Buona Vista Road, I was surprised to hear the screeching of car tyres despite there being many bends in the road.

What shocked me was that within a span of 10 minutes I heard at least two such loud screeching noises. The second time, I saw the driver of a metallic grey Mercedes coupe drifting off his lane in the one-lane-per-direction road, taking up almost the entire opposite lane and recovering only in time to avoid colliding into a Comfort taxi in the opposite lane. The cab driver could only toot his horn; there was no way to avoid a collision had the Mercedes driver 'lost it'.

Just because it was Sunday didn't mean that there were no cyclists riding to Kent Ridge Park to try out the mountain-biking trail, or triathletes or 'roadies' doing their mileage training.

Ngoh Seh Suan

i've got another published bit about the flaws of ippt. let's see when it'd get posted online...

it was a good time to shoot at the kent ridge mtb race today - i managed to get some shots that i couldn't have possibly done before - more importantly, i got to push my last known capability a step further.

hakim (or hakeem?) in the men's veteran competition.

nice descent - curvy yet non-technical.

patrick is the luckiest guy for today - this was my best shot for the day. or so i think?

some rider with a matching pink frm frame, and a pink rockshox sid.

another familiar rider, but i know not his name.

caution: working in insurance may jeopardize relationships.

it's absolutely appalling to find out the disturbing bo-hue, bochup attitudes that some educators have. some polytechnic friends. what will happen in a calamity? who's to answer? what's the backup plan?

for some, it's NONE. yes, NONE!

i'm glad and i'm proud that i'm not a university graduate - i'll stick to a line where i'm doing positive change for people who have a keen sense of responsibility. speaking of responsibility, it's interesting to see how some people actually conjure lies. one polytechnic "friend" was supposed to have an appointment with me one evening, all scheduled and ready to go. just the day before the appointment, i couldn't get him over the phone/sms to confirm the appointment. up till the day itself, he was totally uncontactable - quite unimagineable for a small island country like singapore. so later that night, i saw him on msn - and his response? "never mind one lah... i don't want to talk about insurance..." that was really acceptable by any means, since i don't expect everyone to be interested. but having the irresponsibility to actually call off the appointment by a simple phone call, and not bothering to apologize for the avoidance - that was really a good lesson i learnt for free. from that day onwards, i learnt about the sheer irresponsibility of some people. i've since then struck off this name off my contact list, since it is pointless to associate myself with such people. it helps to realize that who we are, is a result and product of our family background and the friends who greatly influence you - in terms of time spent etc.

i don't want the whole world to be my own clientèle - i seek only those who are highly responsible. in fact, i'm asking some of my current clients who want to procrastinate and want to consider every single technical detail on earth to get another person to service them.

usually there's three main things singaporeans want when making a purchase decision - cheap, fast and good. for those who read my blog, let me clarify here - my services are NOT cheap, but definitely fast and good. want cheap? look elsewhere. i have a basic level of service that i will adhere to, and i'm not out to fight a price war - because i distinguish myself from the lowballers (similarly in photography) by feeding people who want cheap to them, because i can do with quality business. high-handed? yes, i am. remember this - NOT cheap, but fast and good.

after all, that's what insurance is all about - responsibility and love for the family. not some "it's ok, nothing will happen" kind of people. hopefully they change before they happen to be the "other" people to other people that they expect bad things to happen to.

eos1d, 70-200/2.8 is @ 145mm, iso800, f/2.8, 1/25s

got back home from cycling, and witnessed a precast bridge being put into place with two liebherr mobile cranes. was pretty interesting to see it being done.

interestingly, i just found out that singapore's former girl group, mirai had actually sang the english version of white love (japanese girl group, SPEED sang the japanese version, of course!) was actually looking online for a tad more info, while viewing the old old mtv's i've downloaded over the years, and i thought there would be some fun to dig out info about mirai... indeed there is!

there's a forum page with the english lyrics of white love, not sure if i can find anything this kind of interesting or not...