SINGAPORE — For about 20 years, Mr Michael Kuan, who was born with spina bifida and has neurological and urological issues, has been using a motorised wheelchair to get around.

But this user of a personal mobility aid (PMA) has become increasingly frustrated with the seemingly growing number of able-bodied young people using these devices, which are intended to assist those with mobility challenges.

Mr Kuan is especially concerned about errant riders who whizz around on their PMAs — particularly mobility scooters — often without sparing a thought for the safety of other road users.

“Their (scooters) are so wide that my PMA cannot pass when they come at me from the opposite direction of the pedestrian path,” said the 49-year-old, who is the chief executive of a company that provides coaching programmes for corporate employees and individuals.

“Also these users are really aggressive and rude at times when they collide with me or I do not give way to them.”

Rogue PMA users are also drawing the ire of pedestrians, such as young mother of two Nur Hidayah Ahssan.

The 28-year-old Yew Tee resident has had many near-miss incidents with PMA users who zoomed past her from behind without any signal, missing her by “just a few centimetres”.

“A couple of times, I had to move the stroller with my kid inside to the grass patch because I had to give way to them,” said the research assistant at a tertiary institution.

The issue of errant PMA users, particularly those riding three- or four-wheeled mobility scooters, has been in the spotlight recently after a few incidents of bad behaviour came to light.

In one incident last month, an altercation between a 49-year-old woman and a group of PMA riders outside a condominium in Sembawang reportedly turned physical after she shouted at one of them to slow down after they sped past her.

The police told TODAY that the woman had minor injuries, while four persons are “assisting with investigations for voluntarily causing hurt and intentional harassment”.

WHY IT MATTERS

While there are no publicly available statistics on PMA users here — as they are not required to register such devices with the authorities — it is becoming more common to see people who look young and able-bodied bolting around on such mobility scooters in public.

Official data shows that the number of accidents and incidents involving PMAs has increased.

There were nine off-road accidents involving PMAs in just the first half of the year, most resulting in minor or no injuries, compared with 11 in all of 2022 and 16 in 2023, said the Ministry of Transport (MOT) and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in response to TODAY's queries.

In the first half of 2024 alone, nine people were caught for riding PMAs on roads, more than the total cases in 2022 (three) and 2023 (four).

In fact, growing concerns over the misuse and abuse of  PMAs led the Active Mobility Advisory Panel (Amap) to propose in December 2023 several measures to regulate their usage, which have been accepted by the authorities.

But these new rules will only take effect by the end of 2025, to give users and retailers time to adjust and comply. 

The professional stunt driver added that he is more worried about speeding PMAs such as scooters than PMDs, as the mobility aids are much heavier.

“To use an analogy, it will be like a lorry hitting a pedestrian, compared to a motorcycle hitting a pedestrian,” Mr Tan said.

Pedestrians who have young children or live with elderly parents told TODAY that they also worry for their vulnerable family members when they are out in public.

THE BIG PICTURE

Transport and mobility experts noted that Singapore has had experience in swiftly restricting the use of Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs) amid safety concerns several years ago.

However, they stressed that PMAs represent a different challenge, as they involve users with actual need for them, for example. Hence, the same quick approach cannot be applied to PMAs.

The experts outlined various complexities that have to be dealt with before the new rules can be effectively rolled out.

Genuine medical needs

PMAs are “considerably different” from PMDs, in the sense that the former are meant to help people with a genuine, medical need for assistance to move around, said Dr Samuel Chng from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

Thus, the timeline and manner of implementation of the PMA regulations must be done in a way that “it doesn’t exclude people who really need it”, said Dr Chng, who heads the Urban Psychology Lab in the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at the university.

For example, the threshold for what kind of medical condition allows a person to use PMAs or otherwise may require some time to be standardised and communicated to stakeholders.

Avoiding losses for retailers

There is a need to balance between implementing the new rules and giving shops the time to phase out their inventory, said Assistant Professor Terence Fan from the Singapore Management University (SMU).

“Retailers who have bought PMAs with a speed limit above 6kmh would need time to sell their existing stock, as the regulator is clearly not offering any compensation to them should they not be able to sell these stocks before the full implementation of the speed limit,” he said.

Retailers had previously bemoaned their large stockpile of e-scooters that suddenly became “unsellable”, when the authorities abruptly banned the use of e-scooters on shared paths from November 2019 amid a spate of serious accidents.

‘Empathy’ for riders

The Government is also aware that a number of able-bodied persons are using PMAs for “bread and butter” purposes, said Mr Saktiandi Supaat, chair for the Government Parliamentary Committee for transport.

“So in some ways there’s a bit of empathy there, in giving them time to find alternatives,” said Mr Saktiandi, who is also a Member of Parliament for Bishan-Toa Payoh Group Representation Constituency.

Education and enforcement

Effective implementation of regulations would require user awareness of the rules, which can take time to happen, noted Dr Maria Cecilia Rojas Lopez from SUSS. 

“We should also consider that the extended time frame will also allow the enforcers to educate themselves on the regulations and perhaps even incorporate the use of technology to ensure regulations are being complied with,” said the senior lecturer whose research interests include transport planning.

In their joint response to TODAY, MOT and LTA said that through their engagements with various stakeholders, they found that the stakeholders generally agreed with the Amap recommendations "but emphasised the need to provide sufficient lead time for affected riders".

"This is why the Government provided a transition period of at least a year, for the new requirements to kick in by the end of 2025," said MOT and LTA.

Dr Chng said that aside from regulations, it is just as important, albeit more difficult, to foster the right mindset and culture on the road.

“Then it becomes inculcated into us. It goes on to the next generation, and we won't be talking about the same issue five years later, when another accident happens or new mobility devices come out,” he said.