KF Seetoh criticizes panel meant to decide whether bicycles must have brakes after fatal bike incident

Entrepreneur-photojournalist, KF Seetoh, took to social media to call out the panel meant to decide whether bicycles must have brakes after a fatal fixed-gear bike incident earlier this year.

A girl who fell to her death in January at a multi-storey carpark was riding her friend’s fixed-gear bicycle down a slope in the building. Such bicycles generally do not have handbrakes.

The 13-year-old girl had started to learn to ride a bicycle only when she was in Primary 6 and was still a novice at cycling. The girl was found motionless at the ground level of the multi-storey carpark at Blk 526A Pasir Ris Street 51 on the afternoon of Jan 8. She was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.

The Active Mobility Advisory Panel announced last week (Sep 10) that it will look into whether brakes should be required for bicycles following the death of a young girl who was riding her friend’s fixed-gear bike in January.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, renowned food guru KF Seetoh wrote: “hey policy Genius, the problem was not the brakes la. It’s the brains”.

He noted that it would be more crucial to educate people on how to use bikes on roads and walkway, citing examples where cyclists often expect road users to slow down for them as they “zip thru red lights”.

He added that often cars have to also “jam brake” for reckless cyclists, endangering passengers within vehicles.

During the fatal cycling incident, the girl’s friend said that he was unable to keep up after she began cycling down the ramp from the seventh to the sixth level of the building.

While the friend asked the girl to turn right, she continued to move straight towards the metal railing at the side of the carpark and collided with it, he said.

“The court was told that she was flung out of the building but grabbed the railing “momentarily”.

However, she could not maintain her grip and fell to the ground, the court heard. /TISG