SINGAPORE – From her balcony in Lake Vista estate in Jurong, Madam Nargis spied several near misses on Yuan Ching Road as students crossed the road to get to a bus stop.
She alerted the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in January 2023 via the OneService portal, and asked for a zebra crossing along the road, near the junction of Hu Ching Road.
Madam Nargis, who declined to have her full name published, wrote in her request: “Children crossing north need to look back for oncoming left turning vehicles, and also look diagonally right for oncoming right turning vehicles.
“Vice-versa children, crossing south need to look back and front to look out for oncoming vehicles. Hope LTA can look into this urgently please.”
On Jan 27, 2023, LTA replied to the 62-year-old, who lives at Block 138C Yuan Ching Road, on OneService.
They had observed that the students were crossing safely, and noted that there were existing traffic markings to slow down vehicles.
But one year later, Madam Nargis’ worst fears came true.
On Jan 30, 2024, a 12-year-old student from Yuvabharathi International School was killed while crossing the road at the same intersection where Madam Nargis thought a crossing was necessary.
A number of residents wrote to The Straits Times after the initial report on the accident. They said they had alerted authorities about speeding along Yuan Ching Road and the lack of a pedestrian crossing.
There are two traffic light junctions along the road, but they are about 450m apart. One sits outside Jurong Secondary school, where there are signs for traffic to slow down from 60kmh to 40kmh.
The other set of lights is at Yung Ho Road. Hu Ching Road is located between the two sets of lights.
Yuvabharathi International School, which was established in 2009, and Lake Vista are on either side of Hu Ching Road, with a zebra crossing connecting the two.
Mr Choong Jen Hon, who has been a resident of Lake Vista for about 18 months, was at home when the accident happened.
“I heard a loud thud sound. Then one ambulance came, followed by another,” said Mr Choong, who works in facilities management.
In an earlier statement, police said that a second person was injured in the accident. A van driver involved in the incident was arrested for careless driving.
Mr Choong, 66, said there should be a road hump along Yuan Ching Road, for safety reasons and to reduce the noise caused by speeding motorists. He said he wrote to LTA twice in the last year, but had his requests rejected both times.
In an e-mail reply on Feb 14, 2023, LTA told him their engineers noted that there are road signs for motorists to slow down along Yuan Ching Road.