On the back cover of Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going, one sentence caught my eye: “Will Singapore ever become a democracy?” I have yet to read the book in its entirety, but I daresay it will be at least a fairly enlightening read. I mention Hard Truths because the father of modern Singapore often says (either verbatim or in some derived form) that the people of Singapore are not yet ready for a democracy, nor for completely free speech; Singaporeans, when unleashed, will bite each other’s heads off with vitriolic remarks.
You will hear a similar reason being bandied about for most of of the paternalistic policies that are implemented in the city-state: that our citizens need this approach, that it is for the greater good. What I want to talk about, however, is something a little smaller – something, perhaps, that seems insignificant on the surface, but to me seems like a justified concern. I’m talking about jaywalking, an offence that carries (mostly) a $20 fine; but if one were to be a subsequent offender, one might be sentenced to up to six months in jail.
In a 2009 notice by the Singapore Police Force, it was noted that out of the 62 pedestrians who died on the road, 42 of them were jaywalkers. An average of 7000 summonses for jaywalkers is given every year (although the notice also suggested that there were fewer jaywalkers caught – 400 less, in fact). Subsequently, the 2009 statistics for road casualties suggested that there had been a dramatic decline in the number of pedestrians killed on the roads, dropping to 45 deaths.
Statistically speaking, a danger in reading numbers too much
Such statistics, however, do not demonstrate anything, in my opinion. First, after 2008, the proportion of jaywalkers to pedestrian deaths have not been published. Second, the numbers fluctuate randomly, mostly because the dynamics of an accident are complex and not merely based on the behaviour of just an individual. In 2007 and 2008, pedestrian deaths spiked to 58 and 62 respectively – but does that signify that there has been more irresponsible pedestrians?
For instance, one can say that blatant jaywalking behaviour is directly correlated with road accidents: but I hypothesise here that it may not be the case. Taking Little India as an example, where foreigners and locals alike walk as though the roads truly belonged to them, there hasn’t been a significant number of road accidents from what I know of.
The elderly should be targeted?
The majority of pedestrians killed in 2009 were elderly citizens (44.4% of them, according to the Singapore Police Force statistics), and the sizable majority of them were jaywalking then. Hence, the statistics seem to suggest that we should focus our efforts on elderly citizens to ensure that they made use of the available safe traffic crossings.
This may sound a little incredulous, but does it not make sense that it is more likely than not that elderly people are more likely to succumb to the injuries of a road accident? If this is an unfortunate, but unavoidable, statistic that is likely to repeat itself year after year, then perhaps we should be considering an alternative to simply punishing people for jaywalking.
How about just showing the elderly more respect on the roads? When I went to the United States and Canada on exchange, I marvelled at the manner in which drivers stopped for pedestrians to cross the road, even if they had the right of way. It is strange, come to think of it, that the roads are considered public goods – a shared good – but most Singaporeans consider the road to be solely “theirs” at a particular point in time, and somebody else’s at another point. It’s time to learn that the roads are not about the “right” of way, but rather the “need” of way.
All right, punishments… but for whom?
Based on the statistics, surely you would be seeing more traffic police taking on the elderly and making sure, if not to give them a stern warning, that they are fined for their troubles. But what we see is that the traffic police seem to be targeting the “hot spots” where most young people are. Recently they even took the trouble to come down to my university to catch students from making the short, 20-metre journey from one school building to the other.
Why target places like schools, I wonder? Are students like us so terrible at judging distances that we require a constable’s assistance to ensure that everybody makes it across the road safely? (Incidentally, the stretch of four lanes is a one-way street: one doesn’t even have to worry about his blind spot when crossing the road!)
The young should be the least of a policeman’s concerns, if he or she is concerned about jaywalking; after all, most of them are often fit and good enough to make a judgment on whether a road should be crossed or not, and they do not make up the majority of pedestrian deaths. Having a law that is enforced on the wrong audience is (apart from having no effect in reducing tragedies) like an insult to our intelligence.
Three things are wrong with the fact that we need to be punished for jaywalking: the statistics are almost certainly spurious, if not grievously incorrect; the elderly should be “targeted” in jaywalking campaigns; yet, the places where jaywalking patrols are set up seem to happen to be in the wrong locations, targeting the wrong groups of people. Why is that? We may not be having our democracy anytime soon, but at least I am hoping – as with what I suspect is the majority of citizens – that the jaywalking legislation should be reviewed, if not repealed.
Old people are very argumentative and not worth a policeman’s trouble. Young people are not worth a policeman’s trouble to reason with. They are issued a ticket and a warning that protesting will merit a sterner punishment for resistance.