Both he and his bicycle were sprawled on the ground. I staggered onto the asphalt but managed to recover my balance. He had come down the same footpath and run into me from behind.

A second later, I realised that my arm hurt. As I took a closer look at it, he remounted his bike, mumbled "Sorry" and sped across the road despite the flashing green man turning red.

Some skin had been scraped off my forearm, probably by his handlebar, and my elbow would hurt for a week. My only consolation was seeing him wobble somewhat as he rode off, a sign that his front wheel was out of whack. I could only hope he would lose control of his bike before long and tumble into a dirty ditch.

I had no idea who he was. What if I had been more seriously injured? How could I claim compensation from him?

As least if my head was gashed by the aluminium or stainless steel sheet falling off no. 74, Race Course Road, I could, in theory, sue the owner of that property. As you can see, it is part of a disused signboard above a shopfront.

I took that picture because it was the second time I had seen that potential public hazard. The first time must have been at least a month or two prior, since I don't often go to that part of town. The sound that it made flapping in the wind caught my attention on both occasions, but had it never alerted anyone else? No. 74 might have been an abandoned shop, but surely the neighbours should have been concerned enough to report it to the authorities?

Apparently not, and for at least a month too. Don't people care about safety?

You might also be decapitated if a metal sheet flew off this pick-up truck as it accelerated. I took this picture from the upper deck of a double-decker bus along Victoria Street, appalled that anyone would think those two slender ropes would hold anything together.

Did the workers who loaded the truck and its driver not care?

* * * * *

 
It seems there is a law that says bicycles should be ridden on roads, not on pedestrian paths. If so, that law must be even more unenforced than Section 377A. (That's the law against homosexual sex that the government said it would not "actively enforce".)

How often does one see bicyclists on the road? How often on footpaths? The latter must be 100 times more likely than the former. For this essay, I went out to the main road from my home and stood there with my camera for just 15 minutes. In that time I took 20 pictures, of which 3 can be seen below. Bicycles on footpaths are that common.

There's an article in the Sunday Times on this. "Many cyclists choose to use the footpaths because they feel unsafe on the roads, with cars and other vehicles whizzing past," the story said. [1]

"Cyclists are not allowed to ride on footpaths except for an ongoing trial in Tampines that allows the two-wheelers to do so," the newspaper added. "The year-long trial ends in May."

What's that again? A trial in which cyclists are allowed onto footpaths to see whether there's any conflict between pedestrians and two-wheelers?

But isn't that what happens all over Singapore every minute of the day?

Why do we need a trial? Are our policy-makers blind? Do they pretend that nowhere else in Singapore do cyclists go onto pedestrian paths and an isolated experiment is needed? Why do we have civil servants with heads in such clouds?

You don't need a trial. Common sense should tell you there will be conflict, especially as our population ages and more old folks are found on the footpaths. Quite often, the bicycles come silently from behind, and if the senior citizen is hard of hearing, even the ringing bell may be missed. That's if the cyclist rings at all; quite often he won't bother.

I was listening as I clicked. Neither of the cyclists rang his bell.

 
Another reason why you don't need a trial: just look at how other cities have dealt with the problem, especially in Europe. There, dedicated bicycle paths are commonly provided, separate from pedestrian ways. Is it not obvious, the social benefits of that?

Why is public safety so hard to obtain? Not only are shop-owners and truck-drivers negligent, even our planners don't seem to give it enough priority without first running a trial.

* * * * *

 
That bicycle paths are rare in Singapore is another oversight of earlier planning that is going to take millions of dollars to rectify, like the failure to provide elevators at metro stations and failure to provide lifts that stop on every floor in apartment blocks.

When I was young, the bicycle was a very common mode of transport, but up until the 1980s, the car was considered the future. Bus and bicycle were neglected. Even walking was thought obsolescent, as evidenced by the way we built some noteworthy buildings with no easy pedestrian access. The Science Centre, the (old) Jurong Town Hall, the (old) World Trade Centre, IMM Shopping Centre, the (old) Ministry of Education at Kay Siang Road were little castles standing solitary, surrounded by a glacis of parking lots. The poor pedestrian had to walk 100 metres or more over baking asphalt or through torrential rain to get to the front door.

National University Hospital is still like that. Not forgetting the various buildings at East Coast Park and Marina South meant to provide recreational facilities for the common man where, if you don't have a car, it would be hard to get to.

By the 1980s, traffic jams had made it clear that the American dream, where everyone would own a car, was not going to be. Not here at least. Consequently, more priority was given to public transport and in 1987, the first metro line opened. Along with it, gradually more attention was paid to pedestrian access.

But the humble bicycle was still considered an embarrassment for high-tech Singapore. The first metro stations didn't even provide bicycle parking lots -- I remember this because I wrote in to some government department about it. I had thought it should have been an obvious necessity.

Then in the 1990s came the influx of low-wage foreign workers, who brought with them their third world habits, like preferring their trusty bicycles over our spiffy buses and trains. They also brought with them another third-world characteristic: ignorance and contempt for the law.

This was how our present situation came to be. Bicycles everywhere. The law impractical, forgotten and nowhere.

This cyclist just zipped through a bus stop.
  

The solution is obvious: there should be a master plan to lay out bicycle paths, but it's going to cost a lot of money fixing what we didn't provide at the start.

Oh, by the way, they've also announced that foldable bicycles will soon be allowed onto trains. Do I assume we're going to spend money retrofitting all the trains to accommodate them?

Of course, you're not going to hear it the way I have said it. You're going to hear how the government cares about the environment and wishes to promote the green transport mode that is bicycling. No one is going to admit that it had all been a mistake -- 30 years spent building expressways and road tunnels favouring the car, and expecting the demise of the bicycle.

© Yawning Bread