A Malaysian study, which was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2022, found that younger drivers in particular drove considerably faster and engaged in more extreme wheel movements during the COVID- 19 lockdown than at any other day.  ,
Although there are n’t any studies that have examined the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Singaporean drivers ‘ behaviors, Mr. Gopinath said it’s possible that these findings also apply to this country.
” Many individuals may have chosen to travel at high speeds because they had the opportunity.
He claimed that more red light running and reckless driving may have been caused by impatience and general disappointment with the significant limitations on the quality of living.
In fact, from 2020 to 2022, the number of speeding- related accidents here did increase by 50 per cent ( from 757 to 1, 138 ), though that figure dropped sharply by 45 per cent to 624 cases in 2023.  ,
But not all are convinced that COVID- 19 had anything to do with street habits.  ,
What data analyst Mohamed Aqmal, 27, believes that the “remarkable increase in foolish driving” essentially boils down to a persistent occurrence of “road habits that have always been popular in Singapore.
According to transportation analyst Walter Theseira, COVID- 19 and road safety have no known causal links, but current studies only point out the differences in the behavior of some drivers before and after the crisis.  ,
It’s also interesting to note that while traffic accidents have increased and deaths and injuries have increased, red lights and speeding breaches have continuously decreased over the same time period for three consecutive years.  ,
From 2020 to 2023, the number of red- light violations decreased by 38.2 per cent ( 51, 459 to 31, 815 ), with speeding violations dropping by 29.4 per cent ( 163, 823 to 115, 705 ).  ,
However, accidents and like violations are more closely related to protection than these statistics.
According to one driver, 28-year-old media artistic Harris Iskandar, the notion of extremely unsafe roads may have been sparked by the widespread use of smart devices.  ,
” Rather than it getting worse, ( traffic ) incidents are now easily made known to the masses due to the advent of social media,” said Mr Iskandar, who has been driving for eight years.
CAR-SHARING AND RIDE-HAILING HAVE A DIRECT IMPACT ON ACCIDENT RATES
Despite the recent epidemic, the way that Singaporean drivers walk has changed significantly over the past century, most notably with the rise of ride-hailing services like Uber and Get in 2013.  ,
As of finish- June 2023, the personal- hire car population stood at 76, 686- only 455 units shy of the peak in 2019 when there were 77, 141 cars for self- drive rental and trip- hailing.
For vehicle- sharing,  , GetGo told TODAY , in January this year that it launched its services in February 2021 with 10, 000 people, but then serves over 350, 000 registered customers.  ,
Tribecar, which was established in 2016, claimed to have increased its registered users by an average of 30 % over the previous three years, though it declined to disclose the entire customer base.
Research conducted worldwide have shown that although both ride-hailing and car-sharing have an impact on highway safety characters, they point in different directions.  ,
In January 2023, an incident in Yishun involving a GetGo vehicles and an SBS Transit van resulted in the death of the automobile driver and injuries to seven bus passengers,  , which , raised concerns , about the safety of car- sharing services next.  ,