Barriers to keep you safe, and you are complaining

I read one entry by a blogger about the north eastern side of Singapore, being fitted with green barriers that divide the road and of course, stop any jaywalkers from performing their act of potential death. The blogger said he overheard an conversation of an old lady, presuming to another old lady, complaining that she couldn't jaywalk and had to walk all the way to the nearest traffic light to cross the road. The blogger pondered why there is a need for the barriers if the area is deserted and it is okay to jaywalk. Such warp idea.

Now before we argue whether people ought to jaywalk or not. Let see why humans jaywalk. The question here is why human want to cross the road, not the chicken but human. There are many reasons why human want to cross the road. He may cross the road for fun, for school, for walk, for recreational,etc. Yes, crossing the road is a goal to be achieved. Now that is established, then why do they need to jaywalk? I think this is the same as asking, why do you want to cram up studying everything before exam, why you want to cheat during exam. Why you need that 3 in 1 coffee mix instead of manually adding milk and coffee powder. Exactly, human prefer to take the shortest avenue to achieve the same thing. So the reason for jaywalking is obvious, we want to save time. So human will jaywalk! its an inate behaviour!

So in order to save time, we jaywalk. But do you realise nobody jaywalks on an expressway? Well, because when human jaywalk, they exercise their brain to judge and to weigh the pros and cons. Risking their lives to jaywalk there isn't the most intelligent thing to do.

But, does that means jaywalking in deserted road, safer? On the contrary. Precisely it is deserted, vehicles will move faster. And when vehicles move faster, there is a need to set up the barriers because time is not on the driver's side and as human reaction time is pretty slow, slower if he is occupied with something else. Accident happen in this way because one party want to cut time, another party think its alright to speed up. All this are connected to the idea that the road is deserted.

So we should even more put up barriers in deserted road. However i assume the blogger main idea of questioning the viability of barriers is the expense that was spent in erecting up a stretch. He questioned that if the contract to erect one was given to a singapore company, then its alright as money flows back to the economy. However if given to a foreign one, money flows out.

Well, i feel that even if its given to a foreign company, it doesn't matter. Firstly, the cost of putting up one is not that great. Secondly, i believe that such national development projects may be undertaken by HDB surbana or some local satutory affiliated companies. Lastly and more importantly, what is money spent if we can save lives?

The blogger also says that its a sign of nanny-ism because of the barriers as it reflect the political, society atmosphere of Singapore. But to quote a man:" the sg govt is like an open book, but you need to find the answer yourself" And in this barrier incident, if singaporean can think for themselves and do not jaywalk, i believe the barriers won't be set up in the first place. We seek the answer ourselves and the answer here is Barriers to the Jaywalk Question.

Lastly, the blogger think that if the related ministry didn't put up the barriers and the jaywalker died from any accident, his own fault and nobody should care, i think he is missing the bigger picture that a good govt is one where take care of its people and in this case, value human lives.