Traffic police laughing to bank - 205000 speeding tickets issued in 2010
SPEEDING: Exceeding 01 - 20km/h = $130
205000 * 130 = $$$26,650,000
ghahhahaahah ahahahah ahahahahhahaha ahahhahaha
Danger roads
Much careful thought goes into the design of roads and crossings, but motorists and pedestrians must also play their part in road safety
By Goh Chin Lian & Royston Sim
IT'S a daily sight on Singapore's roads: Drivers switching to the right lane get in the way of those filtering to the left lane, neither one willing to give way first.
Motorists speeding across four lanes to turn right - and making everyone else jam on their brakes. Drivers who simply ignore stop signs and yellow boxes.
Also seen on streets: Pedestrians who dash over to a narrow road divider before risking their lives again to race across the road, even when traffic-light crossings are within walking distance.
To some, the fault lies with these drivers and pedestrians for being impatient and inconsiderate, and for dicing with danger without regard for others' safety. But the design of the road or crossing could influence behaviour and boost safety, traffic engineers told The Straits Times.
More than 100 black spots - zones with more than 15 road accidents in three years - have been identified by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) for engineering solutions since 2005. Examples include the junction of Woodlands Avenue 7 and Gambas Avenue, and the interchange between the Seletar and Bukit Timah expressways. They are among the 3,300-plus kilometres of roads managed by the LTA.
And they are also why the Singapore Road Safety Council, as part of a month-long online survey, invited the public last week to report and upload images of road hazards at http://report.ssinus.net/rsc/
Representatives from the Automobile Association of Singapore, the motoring industry and the police, as well as engineering and legal experts, sit on the council.
Engineers said much thinking goes into the design of roads and crossings in Singapore, which serve more than 584,000 cars, 148,160 motorcycles and people making an estimated four million trips daily in buses and taxis.
Take junctions. Clear road markings guide a driver waiting to turn right to position his vehicle in a way that does not impede the flow of oncoming vehicles. Slip roads let him turn left without being held up at traffic lights, with almost all the slip roads having zebra crossings for pedestrians to cross safely.
If he is driving straight through the junction, he and motorists from other approaches can see at least two sets of traffic lights with bright LED bulbs. The road safety council's vice-chairman, Associate Professor Gopinath Menon of the Nanyang Technological University's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said: 'It is safe to say that these safety features are incorporated at all signalised junctions.'
The challenge for engineers is to come up with a design that is both safe and efficient, yet keeps road users like motorists, pedestrians and commuters all reasonably happy, said an LTA spokesman. Hence, a pedestrian crossing may be sited slightly farther away from a spot that seems more convenient for pedestrians, but this is done to allow motorists to spot the crossing clearly and give them enough time to stop. A good design is tested with extensive on-the-ground traffic studies. But its effectiveness also hinges on road users following the rules, the spokesman noted.
Traffic Police figures on road offences suggest otherwise. Summonses to jaywalkers rose from 7,150 in 2009 to 8,010 last year. Over the same period, summonses to motorists for encroaching the yellow box went up from 157 to 180, and speeding violations climbed from 173,000 to 205,000. Traffic accidents leading to injury or death also rose from 8,505 to 8,622 cases, and those at road intersections from 40 to 45.
Police said many accidents at junctions were caused by motorists turning right and failing to give way to traffic from the opposite direction, or failing to keep a proper lookout for pedestrians crossing the road.
New roads and junctions here undergo several levels of safety audits during design and construction.
If some flaws slip through, a backup is the LTA's black spots programme. One improvement it made was to replace some green arrow indicators for right turns with red-amber-green arrows that reduce the likelihood of vehicles colliding with oncoming traffic. Other design changes include lengthening road strips that regulate speed, and moving the road divider farther right so motorists turning right can see the way ahead more clearly.
Dr Lim Wee Kiak, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport, observed that the LTA and the Traffic Police have worked closely to deal with trouble spots, such as installing lights to warn motorists of a bend ahead. But traffic engineering and increased enforcement are just one part of the solution, in his view. He said: 'At the end of the day, road safety is a shared responsibility. Motorists and pedestrians have an important role to play.'
Associate Professor Chin Hoong Chor, from the National University of Singapore's civil engineering department, wants more to be done to detect risks early.
He said: 'We need to adopt a more proactive approach to correct a bad situation if we know the risk is high, even if the observed accident number is still low.'
This is especially so when near-misses or minor accidents without serious injuries go unreported to police.
'Accident statistics are only the tip of the iceberg,' he warned. Getting the public to report flaws at junctions or crossings is one way to go, he noted.
And as Singapore's current five-million population ages, elderly drivers and pedestrians will be a top consideration in road-safety design.
Said Prof Chin: 'When you have more pedestrians, cyclists and drivers who are older, it will become more hazardous. Their reflexes are slower and they may not interpret road signs as quickly as younger people.'
[email protected]
[email protected]
SPEEDING: Exceeding 01 - 20km/h = $130
205000 * 130 = $$$26,650,000
ghahhahaahah ahahahah ahahahahhahaha ahahhahaha
Danger roads
Much careful thought goes into the design of roads and crossings, but motorists and pedestrians must also play their part in road safety
By Goh Chin Lian & Royston Sim
IT'S a daily sight on Singapore's roads: Drivers switching to the right lane get in the way of those filtering to the left lane, neither one willing to give way first.
Motorists speeding across four lanes to turn right - and making everyone else jam on their brakes. Drivers who simply ignore stop signs and yellow boxes.
Also seen on streets: Pedestrians who dash over to a narrow road divider before risking their lives again to race across the road, even when traffic-light crossings are within walking distance.
To some, the fault lies with these drivers and pedestrians for being impatient and inconsiderate, and for dicing with danger without regard for others' safety. But the design of the road or crossing could influence behaviour and boost safety, traffic engineers told The Straits Times.
More than 100 black spots - zones with more than 15 road accidents in three years - have been identified by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) for engineering solutions since 2005. Examples include the junction of Woodlands Avenue 7 and Gambas Avenue, and the interchange between the Seletar and Bukit Timah expressways. They are among the 3,300-plus kilometres of roads managed by the LTA.
And they are also why the Singapore Road Safety Council, as part of a month-long online survey, invited the public last week to report and upload images of road hazards at http://report.ssinus.net/rsc/
Representatives from the Automobile Association of Singapore, the motoring industry and the police, as well as engineering and legal experts, sit on the council.
Engineers said much thinking goes into the design of roads and crossings in Singapore, which serve more than 584,000 cars, 148,160 motorcycles and people making an estimated four million trips daily in buses and taxis.
Take junctions. Clear road markings guide a driver waiting to turn right to position his vehicle in a way that does not impede the flow of oncoming vehicles. Slip roads let him turn left without being held up at traffic lights, with almost all the slip roads having zebra crossings for pedestrians to cross safely.
If he is driving straight through the junction, he and motorists from other approaches can see at least two sets of traffic lights with bright LED bulbs. The road safety council's vice-chairman, Associate Professor Gopinath Menon of the Nanyang Technological University's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said: 'It is safe to say that these safety features are incorporated at all signalised junctions.'
The challenge for engineers is to come up with a design that is both safe and efficient, yet keeps road users like motorists, pedestrians and commuters all reasonably happy, said an LTA spokesman. Hence, a pedestrian crossing may be sited slightly farther away from a spot that seems more convenient for pedestrians, but this is done to allow motorists to spot the crossing clearly and give them enough time to stop. A good design is tested with extensive on-the-ground traffic studies. But its effectiveness also hinges on road users following the rules, the spokesman noted.
Traffic Police figures on road offences suggest otherwise. Summonses to jaywalkers rose from 7,150 in 2009 to 8,010 last year. Over the same period, summonses to motorists for encroaching the yellow box went up from 157 to 180, and speeding violations climbed from 173,000 to 205,000. Traffic accidents leading to injury or death also rose from 8,505 to 8,622 cases, and those at road intersections from 40 to 45.
Police said many accidents at junctions were caused by motorists turning right and failing to give way to traffic from the opposite direction, or failing to keep a proper lookout for pedestrians crossing the road.
New roads and junctions here undergo several levels of safety audits during design and construction.
If some flaws slip through, a backup is the LTA's black spots programme. One improvement it made was to replace some green arrow indicators for right turns with red-amber-green arrows that reduce the likelihood of vehicles colliding with oncoming traffic. Other design changes include lengthening road strips that regulate speed, and moving the road divider farther right so motorists turning right can see the way ahead more clearly.
Dr Lim Wee Kiak, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport, observed that the LTA and the Traffic Police have worked closely to deal with trouble spots, such as installing lights to warn motorists of a bend ahead. But traffic engineering and increased enforcement are just one part of the solution, in his view. He said: 'At the end of the day, road safety is a shared responsibility. Motorists and pedestrians have an important role to play.'
Associate Professor Chin Hoong Chor, from the National University of Singapore's civil engineering department, wants more to be done to detect risks early.
He said: 'We need to adopt a more proactive approach to correct a bad situation if we know the risk is high, even if the observed accident number is still low.'
This is especially so when near-misses or minor accidents without serious injuries go unreported to police.
'Accident statistics are only the tip of the iceberg,' he warned. Getting the public to report flaws at junctions or crossings is one way to go, he noted.
And as Singapore's current five-million population ages, elderly drivers and pedestrians will be a top consideration in road-safety design.
Said Prof Chin: 'When you have more pedestrians, cyclists and drivers who are older, it will become more hazardous. Their reflexes are slower and they may not interpret road signs as quickly as younger people.'
[email protected]
[email protected]
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