Commentary 1 -- Jaywalking

I am writing in response to the article “Watch out! Everyone’s jaywalking” (News, The Sunday Times, March 2 2008) written by Mavis Toh.

Many people these days seem to jaywalk very often. Customers used to cut queues in the past, but now I think the shoppers have become smart enough not to do so. With shopping areas such as Orchard road, time is precious to them as they have so many stores to visit. Some customers have come up with a better way to save time – instead of cutting queues and being rude to others, they have decided to shorten their “shopping breaks” (periods of time when they are moving from shop to shop) by jaywalking across the road instead of waiting for the traffic lights to make way for them. To them, as long as it saves time, it is worth doing. I mean, why else would you see more than 500 people jaywalking in half an hour?!

A few of these jaywalking professionals were approached as to why they wanted to cross the road. “To get to the traffic light, I have to walk at least another 20m. It’s just too annoying,” replied one student jaywalker. I am very sure that 20m is not too much of a stroll away – I don’t see how it would be so annoying. Maybe they think that getting knocked down by a vehicle while jaywalking to save time is much less annoying than walking an extra 20m.

Apart from that, some also stated, “It’s not dangerous. You just have to run at the right time and be fast.” Now this one really sounds like an expert – for today’s practice, you have to do 50 10m sprints, some footwork, and then some dodge ball to test your reflexes. If you don’t concentrate, you will have to learn it the hard way… *screech*screams*BANG*

Oh come on. The road is much more dangerous than that. Even in their practice the dodge balls travel in straight lines – for all you know, there might be a drunk driver who zigzags down the road and then the familiar *screech*scream*BANG* would heard again. Granted, practice makes perfect but the risk is still there, even if the chance is as small as seeing 2 people getting knocked down at a pedestrian crossing at the same time.

I think Singaporeans need to be a bit more concerned about their own safety than time. Time is money, therefore time saved is money saved. But if they get knocked down I think it would be time wasted, money spent and also life gone. So what’s the point? Surely not everyone has arthritis and they cannot walk another 20m; nor do I think that practice would bring about such agility that you would certainly be able to dodge a drunk driver if encountered during a routine jaywalking attempt.

Some are rushing for time so they may not be thinking about all this when they are jaywalking, but thinking "just this once. I’m really late and the boss might..." In that case I too may choose to jaywalk, after considering the probability of an accident happening when I turn my head to look for cars in the other direction. I know a few friends who do jaywalk for the same reason – and I confess that I have jaywalked on a few occasions too.

Even so, until a mutation gives us the ability to immaterialize, I don’t think I’ll consider jaywalking as a habit -- I’d rather walk 20m and get sore legs than a few broken bones (I mean, you'll never know which ones will break first).