Simon Lim: When will ministers address the problem of PMDs?

by Simon Lim

I was greatly saddened again to read about a senior female cyclist who suffers serious brain injury, fractures in her ribs and collar bone when her bicycle collided with a speeding e-scooter in Bedok North.

Such unfortunate accidents could have been avoided to a large extent if only this People’s Action Party (PAP) government has been truly serious and much firmer with its relevant policies and enforcement efforts toward irresponsible riding of e-scooters. I always wonder why can’t they just ban e-scooters completely from our roads?

E-scooter riders have no insurance cover, they don’t pay road tax, they are not required to put on safety helmets, they are not required to attend highway code lessons and test, there is no age limit imposed on the riders and above all, the often heard official reason of having e-scooters is to plug the 1st and last-mile gap of public transport is nothing more than a load of official hot air that only unthinking suckers would bite.

This is, unfortunately, the price that our citizens pay for having voted an incompetent government into office. I ask myself if I could have done a better job at addressing the e-scooter issues if I were put in-charge and my answer is a loud, Yes and there is no need for any pap generals or scholars to BS us. If one is serious enough, one will find a way, otherwise, one will keep finding excuses like what the PAP ministars are doing.

All that we really need to do and is so lacking is to have truly serious enforcements with both officers on the ground and 24/7 camera surveillance backed up with no-nonsense and harsh punishments for lawbreakers. I don’t know how many people need to be seriously injured or even die due to the irresponsible riding of e-scooter accidents before those book-smart ministars are willing to accept that menace and dangers those e-scooters and their speedy Gonzales pose to members of the public.

I sometimes wonder if it must take for some of those PAP ministers’ mothers or children to be badly injured or killed by speeding e-scooters before they are willing to institute truly serious actions to tackle or ban them although.

In conclusion, I want all our political office holders to understand this little deal by heart, ie, since you know how to take very fat political salaries from our taxpayers, then please also know how to do you jobs superbly well in the interest and safety of our people, otherwise, you deserve to be shamed. Think.

This was first published on Simon Lim’s Facebook page and reproduced with permission.