Motor vehicles travel too fast on the streets of Singapore, says British expert.

[bic_cherry]

Motor vehicles travel too fast on the streets of Singapore, says British expert
Public health specialist Lucy Saunders says a healthy street entices people to walk, cycle or use public transport instead of drive.

Public health specialist Lucy Saunders says a healthy street entices people to walk, cycle or use public transport instead of drive.PHOTO: LAND TRANSPORT AUTHORITY
PUBLISHED: APR 15, 2019, 5:00 AM SGT

Rachel Au-Yong
Motor vehicles travel too fast on the streets of Singapore, said a British expert as she called for speed limits on all non-expressways to be slowed to 30kmh.

A 10kmh reduction makes "the difference between life and death", public health specialist Lucy Saunders, 39, told The Straits Times.

TO READ THE FULL ....

 

[eatshitndie]

yup, should be limited to 69 kmh on sexpressways and 6.9 kmh on city streets.

 

[Leongsam]

I've been emphasizing the fact that Singapore should kill the car centric mentality and the sooner the better.

For a country where diabetes makes headline news and is the subject of Prime ministerial National Day speeches, the last thing it needs is for everyone to be sitting behind the wheel of a car.

Everyone should be on their bikes.

 

[nightsafari]

I'm sorry, but how does reducing the speed on expressways by 30 km/h to 50km/h encourage people to walk more? If Singapore doesn't introduce ways of making cycling everywhere possible aka the Netherlands, reducing speed limits is just tantamount to increasing frustration. Anyone with any experience driving in urban or suburban England will know how dumb, slow and frustrating such an exercise can be.

It's not for no reason the UK is the road rage capital of the world. Ironically, it's all because some leftist intellectuals decided the best way to design UK roads was through "traffic-calming" measures which only resulted in traffic stagnation and frustration. Well done nanny state and meddlesome politicians.

you can see how stupid and dumb the UK's road design is in this video below, please note how narrow and overcrowded the roads are. That is entirely by design! :



A few more links :

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-n...-the-worst-country-in-the-world-for-road-rage

https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/327...e-worst-countries-in-the-world-for-road-rage/

And for all the cyclists and m/cyclists out there, you being on the lower end of the Singapore traffic totem pole will end up bearing the brunt of all that grief. Again, just do a google search on UK cyclist road rage.

The only outcome of reducing speed limits without introducing an island-wide cycling network will be more road rage. If you guys listen to this dumb ill-considered advice because it's some AMDL, please be ready for an escalation of road rage. Who knows? Maybe Singapore can be #1 in road rage in Asia, then people will have something to celebrate.

 

[eatshitndie]

I've been emphasizing the fact that Singapore should kill the car centric mentality and the sooner the better.

For a country where diabetes makes headline news and is the subject of Prime ministerial National Day speeches, the last thing it needs is for everyone to be sitting behind the wheel of a car.

Everyone should be on their bikes.

agree. if sg is like amsterdam, it will keep sinkies lean and healthy way after menopause.

 

[Leongsam]

Singapore can then start their own World Naked Bike Ride chapter. It would be a great opportunity for all races to bond.

 

[Leongsam]

I'm sorry, but how does reducing the speed on expressways by 30 km/h to 50km/h encourage people to walk more? If Singapore doesn't introduce ways of making cycling everywhere possible aka the Netherlands, reducing speed limits is just tantamount to increasing frustration. Anyone with any experience driving in urban or suburban England will know how dumb, slow and frustrating such an exercise can be.

It's not for no reason the UK is the road rage capital of the world. Ironically, it's all because some leftist intellectuals decided the best way to design UK roads was through "traffic-calming" measures which only resulted in traffic stagnation and frustration. Well done nanny state and meddlesome politicians.

you can see how stupid and dumb the UK's road design is in this video below, please note how narrow and overcrowded the roads are. That is entirely by design! :



A few more links :

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-n...-the-worst-country-in-the-world-for-road-rage

https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/327...e-worst-countries-in-the-world-for-road-rage/

And for all the cyclists and m/cyclists out there, you being on the lower end of the Singapore traffic totem pole will end up bearing the brunt of all that grief. Again, just do a google search on UK cyclist road rage.

The only outcome of reducing speed limits without introducing an island-wide cycling network will be more road rage. If you guys listen to this dumb ill-considered advice because it's some AMDL, please be ready for an escalation of road rage. Who knows? Maybe Singapore can be #1 in road rage in Asia, then people will have something to celebrate.

UK is in a period of transition so there's going to be some friction in the short term.

However at the end of the journey London and other major cities will become a haven for cyclists and other PMDs and cars will be a thing of the past.

 

[Ang4MohTrump]

Chow Ang Moh fuck off and we don't need to hear any shit idea from them. They are fucktard bankrupted beggars and supposed to be completely eliminated from planet earth. Absolutely stupid Chow Ang Mohs! Only shit ideas are in their heads!

 

[nightsafari]

UK is in a period of transition so there's going to be some friction in the short term.

However at the end of the journey London and other major cities will become a haven for cyclists and other PMDs and cars will be a thing of the past.

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with you. As both an avid driver and cyclist, I will gladly tell you that if (and only if) you were to plonk the Netherlands cycling infrastructure anywhere in the world, I will gladly support it. Everything else I've experienced is at best a half-baked joke in comparison. The Dutch for whatever else they are, made the decision early and very firmly to support cycling. Everybody else is playing catchup with various degrees of success. I've not been to Denmark nor the Nordic countries, but Germany as I've seen is 2nd behind the Netherlands, they're doing quite well. In other Western countries and their urban areas, Canada, USA, UK, Oz, NZ is largely certain tracts of land and road network paying some kind of lip service to supporting cycling and the execution is so half-baked compared to the Dutch.

My concern is that the powers that be will not do the Dutch thing and it will end with a mish-mash of bus lanes, co-mixing with cycle lanes and car lanes. I expect Ms Saunder's suggestion, however well-intentioned, will result in a great deal of strife with no end in sight. I like to cycle and would love to do so in Singapore, but it needs to be executed well. You just need to follow the Dutch. All I see in her article is textbook traffic calming to make motoring miserable enough to make cycling and public transport more preferable. Foisting misery on motorists by narrowing (!) lanes, making it impossible to drive smoothly. She mentions concentrating more. How about nerve-wracking more?

If anybody is in doubt, please book yourself a flight to London, make a determined commute any which you want for week by car for a whole week. Do the same by bicycle for another week. Come back to Singapore and then do the same distance in Singapore. If you're driving, you will fall in love with the PAP and their road planning. I really think it's some of the best in the world. The cyclist will have it bad in both countries. For a bonus, go jam yourself on overcrowded, screechy, broken-down trains on the tube and watch all your clothes go black from the coal pit most tube stations are.

You mentioned the UK being in transition. Well, I've been watching this transition for 30 years and I'm pretty sure they're transitioning to making their roads more hellish for every user with wheels. Singapore is currently hell for cyclists now which is why I really fear cycling there, but if you follow through with her suggestions without the proper cycling infrastructure, you will have hell for the cyclists AND every other road user. Again, if I may reference the sinkie mentality, who do you think those pissed off lorry drivers and big luxury owners are going to take their shit out on?

Really Ms. Saunders, fix your own country's road and transportation network before you carry the white man's burden and dutifully dispense your ill-founded "wisdom" on the rest of the world.

 

[Leongsam]

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with you. As both an avid driver and cyclist, I will gladly tell you that if (and only if) you were to plonk the Netherlands cycling infrastructure anywhere in the world, I will gladly support it. Everything else I've experienced is at best a half-baked joke in comparison. The Dutch for whatever else they are, made the decision early and very firmly to support cycling. Everybody else is playing catchup with various degrees of success. I've not been to Denmark nor the Nordic countries, but Germany as I've seen is 2nd behind the Netherlands, they're doing quite well. In other Western countries and their urban areas, Canada, USA, UK, Oz, NZ is largely certain tracts of land and road network paying some kind of lip service to supporting cycling and the execution is so half-baked compared to the Dutch.

My concern is that the powers that be will not do the Dutch thing and it will end with a mish-mash of bus lanes, co-mixing with cycle lanes and car lanes. I expect Ms Saunder's suggestion, however well-intentioned, will result in a great deal of strife with no end in sight. I like to cycle and would love to do so in Singapore, but it needs to be executed well. You just need to follow the Dutch. All I see in her article is textbook traffic calming to make motoring miserable enough to make cycling and public transport more preferable. Foisting misery on motorists by narrowing (!) lanes, making it impossible to drive smoothly. She mentions concentrating more. How about nerve-wracking more?

If anybody is in doubt, please book yourself a flight to London, make a determined commute any which you want for week by car for a whole week. Do the same by bicycle for another week. Come back to Singapore and then do the same distance in Singapore. If you're driving, you will fall in love with the PAP and their road planning. I really think it's some of the best in the world. The cyclist will have it bad in both countries. For a bonus, go jam yourself on overcrowded, screechy, broken-down trains on the tube and watch all your clothes go black from the coal pit most tube stations are.

You mentioned the UK being in transition. Well, I've been watching this transition for 30 years and I'm pretty sure they're transitioning to making their roads more hellish for every user with wheels. Singapore is currently hell for cyclists now which is why I really fear cycling there, but if you follow through with her suggestions without the proper cycling infrastructure, you will have hell for the cyclists AND every other road user. Again, if I may reference the sinkie mentality, who do you think those pissed off lorry drivers and big luxury owners are going to take their shit out on?

Really Ms. Saunders, fix your own country's road and transportation network before you carry the white man's burden and dutifully dispense your ill-founded "wisdom" on the rest of the world.

You're being far too pessimistic. I too am a petrol head AND a cyclist AND a PMD (e-scooter) user. In NZ I can already see the move away from cars by frustrated motorists who know there is no end in sight to the congestion, the lack of parking and the high costs of owning a car.

My e-scooter now takes me pretty much everywhere. I'm saving $200 a month in petrol and when summer arrives I'll be saving $300 or more. My e-scooter can go 65kph so I can simply go with the flow of the traffic. Then when a congested junction looms I simply hop on to the footpath. It truly is the best of both worlds.

When I want to smell rubber burn I now head out to track days at nearby Hampton Downs where I can test out my reflexes at 180kph. https://www.hamptondowns.com/experiences/track-days/hd-auto/

 

[syed putra]

I'm sorry, but how does reducing the speed on expressways by 30 km/h to 50km/h encourage people to walk more? If Singapore doesn't introduce ways of making cycling everywhere possible aka the Netherlands, reducing speed limits is just tantamount to increasing frustration. Anyone with any experience driving in urban or suburban England will know how dumb, slow and frustrating such an exercise can be.

It's not for no reason the UK is the road rage capital of the world. Ironically, it's all because some leftist intellectuals decided the best way to design UK roads was through "traffic-calming" measures which only resulted in traffic stagnation and frustration. Well done nanny state and meddlesome politicians.

you can see how stupid and dumb the UK's road design is in this video below, please note how narrow and overcrowded the roads are. That is entirely by design!

And for all the cyclists and m/cyclists out there, you being on the lower end of the Singapore traffic totem pole will end up bearing the brunt of all that grief. Again, just do a google search on UK cyclist road rage.

The only outcome of reducing speed limits without introducing an island-wide cycling network will be more road rage. If you guys listen to this dumb ill-considered advice because it's some AMDL, please be ready for an escalation of road rage. Who knows? Maybe Singapore can be #1 in road rage in Asia, then people will have something to celebrate.

No need to reduce speed on highways for motorists. Cyclist and pedestrians are not suppose to be there.
But on secondary roads, speed must be reduced. Its only by driving slower, drivers will givevway to pedestrians crossing the road or guve smple room to cyclists. I pity older pedestrians or those with prams trying to cross as nobody will give way.
Currentkl cars are driven too fast on secondary roads for cyclist safety.

 

[nightsafari]

You're being far too pessimistic. I too am a petrol head AND a cyclist AND a PMD (e-scooter) user. In NZ I can already see the move away from cars by frustrated motorists who know there is no end in sight to the congestion, the lack of parking and the high costs of owning a car.

aiyoh. I never said no cycling nor cycling cannot make it rite? I said her suggestions for promoting cycling are total and utter BS. All she is promoting is making driving more painful and therefore forcing the choice on us. I will say it again. Her suggestions are basically how to make driving miserable. You should have driven on UK urban roads pre and post traffic calming changes. Pre is nothing special. Post is a nightmare. Maybe I can find pictures somewhere....

If her suggestions were how to make cycling safer or more accessible, I would be pleased as punch. With her suggestions I am even more afraid to go cycling. What needs to be done is a PROPER cycling infrastructure ala the Netherlands. Accept no substitutes. I for one will gladly jump on a bike everywhere. I have no intention as most cyclists do of playing chicken with a vehicle whose weight exceeds my own.

My e-scooter now takes me pretty much everywhere. I'm saving $200 a month in petrol and when summer arrives I'll be saving $300 or more. My e-scooter can go 65kph so I can simply go with the flow of the traffic. Then when a congested junction looms I simply hop on to the footpath. It truly is the best of both worlds.

no problem with the PMD, but in either her scenario or the existing one in Singapore you're still either playing chicken with cars or with pedestrians. Shouldn't bicycles and PMD's get a dedicated infrastructure?

 

[nightsafari]

No need to reduce speed on highways for motorists. Cyclist and pedestrians are not suppose to be there.
But on secondary roads, speed must be reduced. Its only by driving slower, drivers will givevway to pedestrians crossing the road or guve smple room to cyclists. I pity older pedestrians or those with prams trying to cross as nobody will give way.
Currentkl cars are driven too fast on secondary roads for cyclist safety.

My eyes are crap, but I made out a few things from that article posted

1) reduce speeds on expressway by 30 km/h. That would mean 50 km/h.

2) reduce speeds on secondary roads by 10 km/h

3) make lanes narrower

(1)+(3) she can go and die.

(2) I don't have much argument with, but currently, nobody obeys the law on secondary roads. It's currently 50 and everybody with no traffic goes faster than that. It's not the law that's the problem. It's the drivers. And yes, I've almost been run over a few times as a cyclist and as a pedestrian by assholes driving the speed limit because they just won't give away. They pay road tax, COE, they can do whatever they want.

No amount of laws or finagling the road structure will change this shitty attitude of drivers which is 1 of the core problems in Singapore. If anything it will make them feel even more aggrieved and more entitled to abuse other road users. The other core problem is the infrastructure is not set up for cyclists and PMD's.

 

[Leongsam]

aiyoh. I never said no cycling nor cycling cannot make it rite? I said her suggestions for promoting cycling are total and utter BS. All she is promoting is making driving more painful and therefore forcing the choice on us. I will say it again. Her suggestions are basically how to make driving miserable. You should have driven on UK urban roads pre and post traffic calming changes. Pre is nothing special. Post is a nightmare. Maybe I can find pictures somewhere....

If her suggestions were how to make cycling safer or more accessible, I would be pleased as punch. With her suggestions I am even more afraid to go cycling. What needs to be done is a PROPER cycling infrastructure ala the Netherlands. Accept no substitutes. I for one will gladly jump on a bike everywhere. I have no intention as most cyclists do of playing chicken with a vehicle whose weight exceeds my own.



no problem with the PMD, but in either her scenario or the existing one in Singapore you're still either playing chicken with cars or with pedestrians. Shouldn't bicycles and PMD's get a dedicated infrastructure?

When the critical number of cyclists and PMD users is reached the infrastructure will start to appear.

Singapore actually had cycleways added to the infrastructure in the good old days when there were a large number of cyclists, trishaws and pedal powered food vendors on the roads. When Nicoll Highway was first opened it had cycle paths on both sides which I actually used to ride to school.

However rising prosperity, thanks to the PAP, resulted in the car becoming dominant and cyclists were literally left for dead.

 

[laksaboy]

Allow people to walk/jog/cycle into Changi Airport Terminal 4, and from there they can take the shuttle bus to other terminals and the Jewel mall.

 

[nightsafari]

When the critical number of cyclists and PMD users is reached the infrastructure will start to appear.

Singapore actually had cycleways added to the infrastructure in the good old days when there were a large number of cyclists, trishaws and pedal powered food vendors on the roads. When Nicoll Highway was first opened it had cycle paths on both sides which I actually used to ride to school.

However, prosperity thanks to the PAP, resulted in the car becoming dominant and cyclists were literally left for dead.
View attachment 57841

How 'bout having the infrastructure appear first? The govt certainly has the will and the means to do so. Isn't that why she's on the paper? So the government can sound out is proposed changes?

Why bother spending the money first on this unintelligent dullard's driver misery initiative? Build a proper cycling network and I bet you a good portion of the whole country will jump in with both feet.

Seriously, just because we're an ex-British colony do we have to adopt everything from them? Are we so narrow-minded that the whole world consists only of British experts? If I need to run a navy from the age of sail or build railroads I'll ask the British. If I value my life as a cyclist and a driver, they'll be the last people I ask.

Why can't we just fly the Dutch road and city planners in and get their input? Would that not be an obvious first choice?

 

[Leongsam]

How 'bout having the infrastructure appear first? The govt certainly has the will and the means to do so. Isn't that why she's on the paper? So the government can sound out is proposed changes?

Why bother spending the money first on this unintelligent dullard's driver misery initiative? Build a proper cycling network and I bet you a good portion of the whole country will jump in with both feet.

Seriously, just because we're an ex-British colony do we have to adopt everything from them? Are we so narrow-minded that the whole world consists only of British experts? If I need to run a navy from the age of sail or build railroads I'll ask the British.

Why can't we just fly the Dutch road and city planners in and get their input? Would that not be an obvious first choice?

Because making drivers miserable is what will force them out of their cars. In fact it was what nudged me into buying my e-scooter and there is therefore one less car on the road.

In order to add cycleways roads first need to be removed or made narrower. She has already indicated how things should proceed.

 

[nightsafari]

Because making drivers miserable is what will force them out of their cars. In fact it was what nudged me into buying my e-scooter and there is therefore one less car on the road.

That is certainly 1 way. But I'm pretty sure that most drivers are already miserable enough. I know I am. All I need is a safe cycling path without heavy vehicles and I'm instantly using my car less.

In order to add cycleways roads first need to be removed or made narrower. She has already indicated how things should proceed.

I'm afraid that I do not see that anywhere in the article. England's solution in urban areas as far as I've seen is bereft of cycleways. She has made no mention of them that I can see. I am however all to familiar with the traffic calming principles that she espouses and I've seen firsthand how much misery and cyclist encounters it causes. You put all that together and the reasonable conclusion from my experience with people like her is that there is no decent plan for cycleways whatsoever other than some eked out lane sandwiched between the bus and car lanes.

If you do the Dutch way of having a totally separate cycle paths, Singapore certainly has the resources and the political clout to do it. Why bother with some half-assed idea that I'm sure will make drivers more miserable and cyclists right in the path for more danger from those pissed-off drivers?

Dutch are ang moh too you know...

 

[nayr69sg]

The problem in Singapore is the weather.

So hot. So humid.

Who wants to walk and be covered in sweat?

That's why people want aircon everywhere. Car. Train. Bus. Got aircon suit?

Sinkieland is hell on earth weather wise.

 

[crimsondue]

British 'expert' conclude so easy?

Here is one:

British empire and colonisation is the root cause of endless world turmoil today.