SINGAPORE: She has ridden her electronic bike to and from work since 2009, and rarely takes the bus or train.
When Singapore banned such motorised personal mobility device ( PMDs ) from footpaths , at the end of 2019, Sarah ( not her real name ) did not despair.
She merely continued using her preferred mode of transportation, whether it was officially on bike paths and park connectors or fraudulently over pedestrian paths and brief stretches of roads.  ,
According to the 50-year-old, it’s impossible to be completely law-abiding during her 20-minute work walk, as the riding paths are not flawless and frequently interrupted by pavements.  ,
” They say that with a PMD, we have to ride on paths with the red-coloured dotted line ( indicating a shared path ), but near my house, there aren’t any. So what can I accomplish”?
Sarah was even caught last year by enforcement officers, who confiscated her PMD worth S$ 1, 500 ( US$ 1, 110 ) and fined her S$ 500.  ,
She then purchased another and started riding. ” The commanders may prevent me… but I’m going to get some more. I won’t stop” . ,
And pedestrians suffer in the midst of such obscene acts of disobedience, according to those living in active freedom areas as identified by regulators.  ,
A Toa Payoh citizen who only wanted to be known as Mark claimed that” the road has been robbed aside from us.”  ,
The 62-year-old, who works in transportation, said that in the five times since the ban, he hasn’t sensed any improvement in his security while walking around his house.  ,
” But it only works when they are there,” Mark said of the additional police officers who have been dispatched to deal with wayward users.
He shared a story about two years ago when a young boy who was improperly riding a PMD was “going very hard” and almost hit him and his partner as they went for a walk.  ,
The Land Transport Authority ( LTA ) informed CNA that the number of accidents involving PMDs significantly decreased in the , years since the ban, despite persistent palpable tension between active mobility users and pedestrians.
There were 144 incidents involving motorised PMDs on roads in 2019, 30 in 2020, and six in the first quarter of 2024.