A little whisper in the dark

Learn to fly, learn to ride.

I saw this one day when I was riding home on my mountain bike; a pair of motorcyclists, young man on a KTM scrambler, and a girl on a smaller motorbike. Apparently its her first ride out after getting her licence, nice new P-plate, nice new bike, and a bike that kept stalling through the inexperience of its rider.

To top it off, there was a taxi following the pair (yes they were travelling that slowly), escorting them, so to speak. And a middle aged woman in it. At that point I reckoned that the girl probably didn't deserve to get her licence, and whoever did pass her, also wasn't doing her any favours by sending out a rider clearly unable to get her own bike moving, even.

But well, as they say, hindsight's always 20/20, and the flip side of the coin is that said newbie rider probably got her licence on her own merit, and its the prescence of the taxicab and its occupant that distracted her to the point of seeming like a total loss on a bike.

I suppose, while we would all want to do our best to oversee the safety and well-being of our charges, as was the case of the mom in the taxicab, there's a time we must put our trust in certain things, like the standards of the driving test centre, and the skills of those we care for.

You can put a safety belt on a bird learning to fly for fear it would fall, but leave the safety belt on and it'll never fly high nor far.

posted by Chung Leong @ 9:37 PM