According to “Floor lights help ‘smartphone zombies’ keep eye on the
road”, (Tan, 2017), new LED strips that mimics the flow of the traffic lights
are installed at 2 pedestrian crossings on a half-year trial by the Land
Transport Authority to raise awareness of road safety.
Tan mentioned about the figures, which was released by Traffic Police, that the accident rates were at a four year high, with pedestrian accidents making one-third of all fatal road accidents and the elderly making up substantial part of the figures. Tan then remarked that the new feature will make crossing safer with the assistance of the LED strips.
Tan mentioned about the figures, which was released by Traffic Police, that the accident rates were at a four year high, with pedestrian accidents making one-third of all fatal road accidents and the elderly making up substantial part of the figures. Tan then remarked that the new feature will make crossing safer with the assistance of the LED strips.
While the new safety system implemented would aid pedestrian to cross
the road safer and reduce road accidents, I feel that LTA should work together
with the Traffic Police to focus the ongoing problem regarding road safety
among the elderly.
Statistics have shown that accidents involving the elderly are increasing
over the past few years. According to the figures provided by the Singapore
Police Force (2017), both the number of accidents and fatalities involving the
elderly have increased by 19.6% and 21.7% respectively. In this case, LED
lights would only benefit the elderly in traffic junction due to visual
hindrance which prevents some of them from seeing the traffic signal
from far. However, as mentioned by the report released by SPF, “Elderly
pedestrian fatalities are also commonly caused by motorists not keeping a lookout
for and not giving way to these pedestrians.”, the LED floor lights would only
aid the elderly pedestrian to cross road safer but they are still vulnerable to
careless motorists. With that being said, LTA and TP should impose heavier
punishment on careless motorists.
Another key issue the LTA and TP should focus on is the problem with
jaywalking among the elderly.
SPF indicated that the number of accidents involving elderly who
jaywalked increased by 42.1% in recent years. In the article “Convenience over
safety for senior jaywalkers” (2016), a senior citizen in his 70s, said that it
is exhausting to climb the overhead bridges due to the sweltering weather and
‘it is more convenient just to jaywalk’. Despite having overhead bridges and
safety measurement introduced by LTA such as Green Man Plus Scheme, which
provides elderly pedestrians additional time to cross the road, the elderly
pedestrians still chose jaywalking in favour of walking to the nearest traffic
light or making extra effort to climb overhead bridges. In this instance, LED
lights would not be useful at all as it is only available in traffic junctions.
LTA and TP would have to educate the elderly to further stress the importance
of safety to convenience sake and step up effort to nab jaywalkers.
In conclusion, although LTA implemented LED floor lights to ensure road
safety of the people, it is evident that accidents involving the elderly are
not showing signs of improvements. Therefore, LTA, with the aid of TP could
work together and tackle the issue regarding road safety among the elderly by
improving current safety measures.
Reference:
Tan, Christopher. “Floor lights help 'smartphone zombies' keep eye on
the road.” The Straits Times, 9 May 2017, www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/floor-lights-help-smartphone-zombies-keep-eye-on-the-road.
Accessed 15 Sept. 2017.
''Annual Road Traffic Situation 2016" Singapore Police Force, 15
February 2017, https://www.police.gov.sg/~/media/spf/files/statistics/20170215_stats_road_traffic_situation_2016.pdf
Accessed 27 Sept. 2017.
Land Transport Authority, n.d,
Accessed 27 Sept. 2017.
Soh, Zachary. “Convenience over safety for senior jaywalkers” The New
Paper, 17 April 2017,
Accessed 13 October 2017.
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