Research Hub

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Do the low income need more instant noodle donations?

Do homeschooled children get equal opportunities?

Suffering in silence: the elderly whose children have desserted them.

The state of road safety in Singapore in 2026: Where road kills are humans

Singapore’s road safety record is strong and it is one of the wealthiest countries in Asia, but that strength can obscure where road risk is becoming more serious. As the driver population grows older, more globally diverse and more uneven in the performance of the vehicles being driven, policy can no longer assume that all motorists present the same kind of danger in the same way. A modern road safety strategy should therefore stop treating risk as a general moral failing and start treating it as a set of identifiable conditions: age‑related decline in reaction time and judgement, unfamiliarity with local road rules and driving culture, and the mismatch between ordinary driving ability and extraordinary engine power. The Government does not publish stats at the point of writing, but heres what we researched.

The case for closer attention to senior drivers aged 75 and above is the most obvious, but it should be framed with care. The point is not to make age itself a disqualification; it is to recognise that a medical check every few years may be too blunt an instrument for a population facing predictable changes in vision, cognition and reflexes. A fairer and more intelligent approach would combine shorter revalidation intervals with functional assessments, conditional licences and stronger mobility alternatives, allowing older Singaporeans to preserve independence where possible without asking the public to absorb avoidable risk.

Two other groups deserve similar policy imagination. New citizens and recently converted foreign‑licence holders may be competent drivers, yet still need structured acclimatisation to Singapore’s road culture, signage and enforcement environment; meanwhile, drivers of high‑powered cars should arguably face additional training requirements because the capability of the machine sharply raises the cost of ordinary human error. Taken together, these cases suggest a broader principle for Singapore: road safety policy should be differentiated, evidence‑based and proportionate, with higher obligations placed on those whose age, unfamiliarity or vehicle capability create higher potential harm.

Another high risk group that poses danger on the roads and to commuters are foreign imported drivers who dirive our public buses. There are many cases where commuters expirence abrupt braking, throwing eldlery commuters off guard.