Biker arrested for high-speed, high-risk riding

Biker arrested for high-speed, high-risk riding

It was a high-speed, high-risk 10km ride that landed him in trouble with the law.

Police have arrested a 32-year-old biker who filmed himself speeding past and weaving in between other vehicles on the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE).

The Singapore Police Force (SPF)shared the video on their Facebook page on Wednesday, together with the announcement of his arrest.

The clip, lasting 5 minutes and 46 seconds, was originally posted on YouTube by user Phantom Phantom on Oct 4.

By yesterday afternoon, the clip had drawn over 29,000 views.

It shows the BMW F800R heading from the junction outside Raffles Town Club to the PIE and then the BKE towards Woodlands.

Along the way, the biker cuts across lanes to overtake lorries, tackles turns seemingly without slowing down and narrowly squeezes between moving cars.

At one point (at the 3min 50sec mark) he even aggressively revs his engine to intimidate another motorcyclist before raising his hand to scold him for being slow.

The BMW rider then shouts in Malay: "You want to check your handphone for what?"

He has not been identified and it was not known when the video was filmed.

The SPF Facebook post read: "Wouldn't it be nice if people shared good road behaviour videos?

"TP (Traffic police) has arrested a man who is believed to be the biker in the video and he is assisting in investigations.

#ROADSENSE

"Just looking at the video tells us that his actions can affect so many other road users. Let's use more ‪#‎RoadSense‬ when we're on the roads."

Mr Zaihan Mohamed Yusof aka The New Paper's Biker Boy was shocked by the video, including how the biker rarely used signal lights and rode close to other motorists in a bid to intimidate them.

Obeying traffic rules, Mr Zaihan completed the same 10km route in about nine minutes, compared to the biker's timing of about 5½ minutes.

Automobile Association of Singapore president Bernard Tay said that a speeding rider provides less time for other motorists to react to potential danger.

"The injury a person can sustain in a vehicle collision at 120kmh is similar to that of a person falling from the 12th storey," he warned.

"The rider will suffer multiple injuries and possibly death."

Besides endangering himself, the rider also puts other motorists and pedestrians at risk as "they have no protection against a block of speeding metal".

Singapore Kindness Movement general secretary William Wan felt the best reaction would be to ignore hostile road users.

He said: "When you're on the road, there's no point having an altercation. Frankly, (such situations) have happened to many of us. Since these people are full of rage, you don't want to risk your life and limb confronting them."

It is not known why the rider decided to upload a video of himself putting other road users in danger, but many netizens praised the police for taking action.

Others were alarmed at the danger posed by the biker, both to himself and to fellow road users.

Facebook user Ken Brandon Pereira commented: "TP is doing a good job arresting him (as) they are actually saving his life."

A police spokesman confirmed that a man has been arrested for rash driving and is assisting with investigations.


This article was first published on October 17, 2015.
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