My ang mo friends says more and more singaporeans have a "taji
blame and taji responsibility" mentality. This statement was proven
by some of the posts in this thread. haiz....
Everyone is responsible for himself, be it career, health,
safety, etc. It is no fault of SMRT that the thai girl lose her
leg. It is an accident, not through anyone's neligence. If she had
slip and fall and lose a leg when walking along the pavement at a
park, do she sue National Parks Board? If she had fainted and fell
off her bicycle and lost her leg while riding, do she sue the
bicycle company? In this issue, she lose her legs at SMRT. There
were no neligence whatsoever on SMRT.
Regards to installing doors, it is an additional safety feature.
It is not a legal requirement. It is not a legal requirement if you
were to start and build a train station. It is only a
recommendation made by the review board after cases of
injury/jumping off into the track.
$5000 is a goodwill gesture to the thai gal. It's her father who
got the picture wrong.
Someone spoke about the law. I believe he or she is refering to
the Law of Torts aka on reasonable neligence. There is no neligence
on SMRT.
But the bigger story here is the number of singaporeans pushing
blame to larger organisations. I am saddened to see people
complaining that SMRT should have put in the doors, SMRT should
have widen the yellow line areas, etc. No wonder I keep hearing the
line "Singaporeans are a complaining lot".
Perhaps it is the influence by the west on interpreting and
pushing legal obligations to the extreme. Perhaps it is the
weakness of our newer generation whom are unable to accept
responbilities. Perhaps it is our style of governance or perhaps it
is our style of finding someone to accuse when something goes
wrong.
I have no idea what spore will become say 15 years from now when
this generation of kids, who are totally immersed in this taji
mindset from primary school, takes over the country.
Blame is justified if its reasonable, which I understand can be
subjective. Blame (unfortunately) can also make some people
responsible in instances where they have not been and they should
have.
In this instance, I don't think any party is to be blamed. It
was an accident...based on reports at least. I don't know anything
about the legal side of things, but I think SMRT's $5K gesture was
out of goodwill...which is better than a kick in the teeth. I dunno
what the father plans to pursue with lawyers and I don't
necessarily agree with the concept, but can understand why he is
doing what he is given the events. Maybe its a case of finding any
loop-holes and getting what they can out of it to 'soften' their
financial situation?
To cover their behinds, SMRT and other organisations should
protect themselves from potential gold-diggers from a legal point
of view if they haven't alreay done so. Its a sad neccessity.
