Highway at rush hour perfect place to teach child how to cycle, insists Grandfather

Tây Hồ, Hanoi – With a smile on his face and boundless love in his heart, Nguyen So Hiep beams with pride as he watches his granddaughter Duyen learn to pedal her pink bicycle, riding up and down a busy stretch of Yen Phu Street at rush hour.

The four-year-old has taken to the streets of Hanoi like a duck to water, pumping her feet in rhythm and deftly weaving in and out of the trucks, motorbikes and gold-rimmed SUVs that hurtle past her.

“Nothing gives me greater joy than hearing the anguished cries of buses and ice delivery drivers when she cuts them off and completely ignores them. It reminds me of my carefree youth,” Hiep wistfully said to The Durian as he watched Duyen pedal the wrong way down the street while playing a game of Candy Crush on her phone.

When asked whether it was sensible teaching a child still not fully in control of their bowel movements to cycle on a busy road, Hiep snorted so loudly he almost spat out what remains of his teeth.

“What’s the problem? I learned to cycle here as a child and the roads weren’t even paved back then. Yes, it’s a little busy, but we can’t coddle children or else they’ll never grow up. She has to learn to get back up when she falls, dust herself off, rearrange her kneecaps into the correct positions, argue her case in the ensuing traffic dispute, and get back on the bike as if nothing happened,” he said.

Hiep is also explaining the finer points of cycling fashion to his descendant and letting her know how important it is to dress properly on the roads.

“Under no circumstances should she ever enjoy unrestricted peripheral vision, how else is she going to learn to cycle as if she’s the only person or thing using the road? I’ve made sure she has a hat, mask and scarf to wear to keep her safe and blind.”

Nhanh Van Nhanh, owner of the Tay Ho-based driving school YouDriveFast, told The Durian that Duyen has a promising career as a road user ahead of her.

“All the greats start early. Anyone who ever caused a traffic accident with four fatalities or more got on the roads by at least six, so Duyen has a strong head start. If she has the necessary grit and thoughtlessness required to flout all the laws of man and God on the roads and thereby cause chaos and devastation every time she pops to the shops, she could go all the way to the YouDriveFast Hall of Fame.”

While Hiep acknowledges Duyen has a long way to go before she’s ready to hit the roads totally unsupervised, he has faith she’ll get there sooner rather than later.

“She’s already dipping out from behind parked cars at the last minute and finding other cyclists to talk to while they ride slowly, stalling traffic behind them to a crawl,” he said with great pride, “She’s a natural!”

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