My Singapore Life, Part DXLVI

In what's become a near-weekly occurrence, I got hit by a car while crossing a crosswalk this afternoon. I was halfway through the crosswalk next to the McDonald's at Tampines Mart here in Singapore, walking towards my home in one of the adjacent blocks of flats, when a red cab hit my hip as I was jumping clear of him. He was doing at least 10-15 kph going up to the exit gate, which is typical for the cars here. A raised crosswalk with zebra-stripes, especially with posted "yield to pedestrians" signs, is supposed to mean that pedestrians, of whatever ethnicity, who are already in the crosswalk before a vehicle crosses the adjacent limit line have the right of way. What's left unwritten, in this most racist of officially non-racial "countries", is that the rules only apply to Chinese drivers if the pedestrian is Chinese.

As I indicated, this happens to me at least once a week, and there's a certain…predictability…to the particulars of the offending driver. I saw a Malay woman crossing the same crosswalk about three weeks ago get hit and knocked down, and the driver just kept going.

Singapore is a very popular tourist destination in South Asia, but if you're coming here, be aware of certain sensible ground rules. Stay in the tourist/expat "bubble" areas, generally downtown. Be prepared to spend lots and lots of money. And, whatever you do, don't take any of the tourist propaganda about "multi-cultural, non-racial Singapore" as anything other than the sick joke it has become in recent years. If and when we get a post-PAP Government, that may change. But I'd be very surprised if it was markedly less in any time-frame short of a generation or three.