To many, the Road Safety Park (present-day Road Safety Community Park) brings back fond nostalgic memories of their fun school excursions and carefree student days. More than a million local students had played the traffic games held at this 4-hectare park along East Coast Parkway since the early eighties.

Road Safety Park Project

Road safety was a major concern in the seventies. An average of 260 lives were lost in road accidents annually, with thousands more injured. About 33% of the total pedestrian casualties were children below the age of 15.

To tackle the issue, the Ministry of Education and Traffic Police came together to do a Road Safety Park project that would introduce road safety to the students as a way of life. It would also educate them the importance to abide by the traffic rules, be more road safety conscious and considerate to other road users. At the park, the students would learn traffic hand signals and the functions of traffic light junctions, zebra crossings, road signages and petrol kiosks.

The project gained support from various local organisations and companies such as General Insurance Association of Singapore, Singapore Turf Club, Shell Singapore, Post Office Savings Bank (POSB), Tan Chong & Sons Motor Company, McDonald’s Singapore, Cycle and Carriage and Mitsubishi Motors. Their sponsorships ensured the successful completion of the $1.3-million Road Safety Park in late 1980. On 11 January 1981, the new park was officially opened by then-Home Affairs Minister Chua Sian Chin.

In 1984, the Road Safety Park added a new $760,000 administrative block, with $250,000 of its construction cost sponsored by the Shaw Foundation. Initially built for the National Safety Council, it was handed over to the Traffic Police Command upon its completion. The block had a multi-purpose hall, offices, workshops and a snack bar.

First Road Safety Park

East Coast’s Road Safety Park, however, was not the first road safety-themed park in Singapore. In 1950, the Shell Group of Companies introduced the Shell Traffic Game to Germany and the popular game later spread to other large cities in Europe. It proved to be an effective method to train the young in road safety. The first traffic game came to Singapore in 1958, organised by Shell and sponsored by the Singapore Safety First Council.

A $75,000 course at Kallang Park was provided by the Singapore government for the Shell traffic game, which quickly became popular among the locals. However, it was discontinued in the mid-sixties as the Kallang course had to be demolished to make way for the new National Stadium. It was not until more than a decade later that another road safety course was built at East Coast.

Traffic Games for Students

The Road Safety Park was able to accommodate up to 300 students at any point in time. By 1991, a decade after the park’s opening, more than 600,000 Primary Three to Secondary Two students had participated at least once in the traffic games.

In the traffic games, the National Police Cadet Corps (NPCC) members were assigned with the roles of traffic marshals to guide their fellow students, who would play the roles of pedestrians, cyclists and go-kart drivers. The go-kart driver and cyclist roles were the most popular among the students.

Each participant was issued a route card, and those who completed the games without any traffic violations and penalty points were awarded proficiency certificates.

In June 1985, the park was opened to the public during the weekends to further spread the road safety message to families, elderly and young. The charges were $1 for a 45-minute g0-kart drive around the park, and 50c for a 45-minute bicycle ride. Pedestrians were free to stroll around the park.

The park would be fully opened to the public in 2010.

In the eighties, the Road Safety Park was also the venue for the Singapore Scout Association’s cadet scouts to take practical tests for their Road Safety Proficiency Badges.

From 1989 to the nineties, the park was used to provide road safety education for the senior citizens, where they were given lessons on safe crossing of roads at zebra crossings and traffic junctions. The elderly were encouraged to wear clothing of brighter colours to increase their visibility to the drivers.

Road Safety Campaigns and Mascots

The Traffic Police unveiled a mascot called Safety Bear (小安安) in 1986, together with a “More Patience, Fewer Accidents” slogan, as part of its road safety campaign.

Safety Bear was then introduced through televised safety filmlets, comic strips and printed T-shirts. There were even 6,000 Safety Bear toys on sale at the Road Safety Park, department stores and neighbourhood shops.

The mascot would become part of Singapore’s memorable and iconic mascots of the eighties and nineties, along with Singa the Courtesy Lion and Teamy the Productivity Bee.

The road safety campaign had a positive effect on many children. A 11-year-old girl called Carol Lin Meimei, in 1988, wrote a road safety poem that impressed the Traffic Police so much that they used it as part of their road safety education for the primary school students in the late eighties. The poem was:

I have learnt my two times table
And I know my A B C
But the thing that is most important
So my teacher says to me
Before I cross the road
To stop and look most carefully
I look to the right
I look to the left
And back to the right, I know.
And only if the road is clear
Am I allowed to go.
Whatever else I may forget
Kerb drill I must remember.
It’s most important everyday
From January to December.

In 2011, the Singapore Road Safety Council, Traffic Police, People’s Association and Automobile Association of Singapore collaborated to introduce another road safety mascot called Mr Zebra. Its road safety slogan was “Be Seen, Be Safe. Every Life Matters“.

Other road safety measures in the eighties included a road-crossing monitor scheme implemented in 1987 at many schools, where students in bright orange vests would stand near the school gates to ensure their fellow students obey the safety rules when entering and leaving the school.

As for the drivers, the Traffic Police introduced the Driver Improvement Point System (DIPS) in 1983 that identified habitual bad drivers for re-training. More resources were also allocated to improve the training and testing methods for the learner drivers. Two new training circuits – the Singapore Safety Driving Centre at Ang Mo Kio and Kampung Ubi Driving Test Centre – were opened in June 1985 and March 1986 respectively. Learner drivers must pass a Final Theory Test before they could take the practical driving test.

The road safety campaigns, measures and education helped to lower the number of accident-related deaths and injuries on Singapore roads in the eighties.

In 1994, for the first time since its opening, the Road Safety Park was closed for repainting and repair works. It was upgraded again in 2002, with a change of name to Road Safety Community Park to emphasise the importance of the community’s role in road safety. By its 20th year, more than one million students in Singapore had gone through the traffic games at the park.

In 2003, the Shell Traffic Games, which had always been held at the Road Safety Park, was moved indoors for the first time at the Singapore Expo Hall.

Today, the Road Safety Community Park is still hosting the annual traffic games for the students. According to the Traffic Police’s Road Safety Branch, the park will soon be upgraded once more as it continues to serve as an integral part of the ever-ongoing road safety campaigns.

Published: 27 July 2024