I was on the bus coming down Clementi Road this morning and spotted an interesting sight: An all-white bicycle on the opposite side of the road, with some flowers placed on the ground in front of it. The bicycle is actually painted all white, not that its frame was white. Everything is totally white, the pedals, the chain, even the rubber tires that you’d expect to be black. It reminded me of an episode of CSI New York that I watched some time ago. It’s called a ghost bike.
Ghost bikes are put up beside the road at or near where a cyclist had been hit and/or killed. It serves as a memorial, and a reminder of the tragedy that took place. It’s something that started in the US, and the practice has spread to other parts of the world. But I had never seen it in Singapore. Could this be it?
I searched Google and found out about Benjamin Mok. It really is a fatal cycling accident. The actual site indicated on the webpage isn’t quite accurate, but perhaps it’s just Google Maps’ way of indicating where Clementi Road is. If you want to look out for it, it’s actually past the Ngee Ann Polytechnic main entrance as you head northward. Apparently an article was carried in The New Paper on 30 March 2010 (but I don’t read The New Paper).
A drunk driver is suspected in this incident.
Megan Wilber, a film director, is making a documentary on ghost bikes around the world. I read about it here: http://bikeportland.org/2010/06/14/filmmaker-visits-portland-and-vancouver-to-document-ghost-bikes/
The film person’s contact email is in the article. Can you think about contacting her to see if she would want to include Singapore’s first ghost bike?