a 40-year-old cyclist ran down a 72-year-old lady on a pavement, severely fracturing her arm. the old lady was earning just $800 a month as a home seamstress; with a broken arm she could not sew at all. during her recovery her two sisters, themselves both seniors, helped support her with their shift-work pay as carpark cashiers. she is sewing again, but with decreased dexterity and lingering pain her custom is much reduced. her surgery, physiotherapy and other medical bills came close to $5000.where does the old lady go? to legal aid: why should she not have justice? no pound of flesh but plain incomprehension: how can a person run a bicycle into her, break her arm, cause her pain and distress, suspend her livelihood, force on her financial loss she can ill-afford? how can this person then ride away scot-free, and the law allow this? on christmas eve we got her $30000 in damages for past medical expenses, loss of earning capacity, and pain and suffering. a paper victory merely: the cyclist has no money to pay, and refuses to pay. we could get a writ of seizure and sale against him, but he lives in a rental HDB flat available only for the low-income and is unlikely to have much property. (we’ll see, when we get there). he could potentially go to jail for a few days for defying a court order: but what good does that do my old lady? (plus, i do not like to see the poor sent to jail for want of money, when the rich can simply pay their wergild.) though my sympathy wanes here: had but the cyclist had been less disagreeable, had but he offered something however small towards the old lady’s medical bills! that he would walk away and refuse to take any responsibility for the accident infuriates me, yet his decency had extended far enough for him to call her an ambulance, and stay till it arrived. what else is there to do, legally? if you or i wilfully defied a court order we could not get away with it. we own personal property, we may even own real property, we have bank accounts, we draw salaries which can be garnished. more than that, we would fear the talk of the neighbours, the scorn of society, no judge would hesitate in sending us to jail, privileged, educated men and women, who ought know better. but what does one do, when one is too poor to be sued, and care nothing (or cannot afford to care) about his good name? my old lady would have been better off if instead of a lawyer she found a sympathetic newspaper reporter: singaporeans are big-hearted people, and a story would only have had to touch heartstrings to the tune of $5000, that she not be out of pocket for medical treatment.
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if this were a motor accident the case would hardly be worth mentioning: at the end of talk-talk-talk an insurance company would pay the old lady, there endeth the matter, but cyclists of course are not required to have insurance. i’m not thinking about protection for the cyclists themselves (because we all have the freedom to risk personal injury to ourselves) but why should third party claims fail for want of insurance? naturally i don’t subscribe to the current american hysteria about cyclists being deathly perils to pedestrians. american statistics consistently show that cyclist-pedestrian fatalities are very rare. on the other hand, i don’t find sufficient documentation of non-fatal cyclist-pedestrian collisions: motor accidents are the subject of police and insurers’ inquiries and sometimes criminal sanction, bicycle accidents, where it does not involve a death, are mere tortious disputes between private citizens and go unrecorded. were these properly documented we would have better data upon which to have a conversation about the necessity (or not) for cyclist insurance. compelling the purchase of insurance raises the cost of bicycle ownership and usage; those committed to cycling for reasons environmental may accept the increased cost, but it is often said it would deter occasional cyclists from doing so at all. i see another problem in singapore: for many of the low-income singaporeans a bicycle is the principal mode of transport: even taking the bus or train would be too costly over short distances — and public transit fares rise everyday. it would be a burden on these people — they ride not as a lifestyle choice or out of high ideals about green cities or oil politics or urban infrastructure or accessibility — they ride precisely because they cannot afford to travel any other way, and we would impose a recurring cost on them they can ill-afford.
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