Absolutely chilling. What are the odds of being hit by a car in Singapore? One would think that, given so few people have them and that there are so few roads large enough to speed down, with the culture being so conservative, drugs near-absent and surveillance omnipresent, that it would be rare indeed; further, it would be trivial to catch the perpetrator. Were they caught in this case? Not, I suppose. It feels as if western state-assisted assassinations of civilians are becoming a more frequently documented reality, and not just for CIA rendition, UAV or economic sanction victims, either.

Let's see what the statistics have to say, first for Singapore:

"Total pedestrian fatalities dropped from 49 in 2011 to 44 in 2012" [1] Singapores' population is ~5 million[wikipedia], so the odds of being killed by a car for the total population is ~0.00088%

For a comparison let's look at NYC, which has roughly double the population within City Limits (~8 million for NYC):

"From 2002 to 2006, 843 pedestrians were killed"[2] That's ~211 deaths per year. Making the percentage odds ~0.0026375%

So you're about 1/3 as likely to be hit and killed by a car in Singapore than NYC. That's fairly significant, but there are a couple things to point out. NYC does have a significantly higher population density and I would assume it has a higher amount of vehicle traffic.

I think overall while it's clearly less likely to be killed as a pedestrian in Singapore, I wouldn't exactly call it "rare". And while I'm no professional on Singapore, I don't know why you characterize Singapore as somewhere that doesn't have large roads or many vehicles (There are 965,192 vehicles in Singapore[1]). Also I don't think CCTV is nearly as ubiquitous as you think, from the few news articles I've read they probably only have a few thousand with more only starting to roll-out recently[3][4]. It's certainly not up to London standards, and I doubt even there ever single pedestrian death is caught by CCTV.

[1]http://driving-in-singapore.spf.gov.sg/services/driving_in_s...

[2]http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nyc_ped_safety_stu...

[3]http://www.safetrolley.com/latest-news/singapore-police-inst...

[4]http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1S...

I don't see how NY is relevant at all. Perhaps this is relevant, though:

"With a population of 5 million, Singapore has one of the world's highest per capita execution rates. While official figures are not produced, according to Amnesty International there have been at least 400 executions over the past two decades." - The Guardian, 2010-11-16, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/...

I dont know much about these cases, but having lived in singapore you are just as likely to be hit by a fast moving car as anywhere. I saw people running across the ~4 lane orchard rd all the time while shopping.

I agree. I was almost hit by a truck while crossing Orchard at Grange.

Sorry but this is rather ignorant. Enough people have cars and the roads are definitely wide enough, just like anywhere else, for traffic accidents to occur regularly. Surveillance might be omnipresent, but it's not a CCTV state like the UK.

s/UK/London

Birmingham, and Manchester too. Birmingham has the everywhere in the ring road covered thing going on. Manchester just seems like it.

Singapore has many wide roads for a city, substantial traffic, reasonable speed limits, and many intersections with at least one crossing having no crosswalk or pedestrian signals.

In the short time I have lived in Singapore, there were two kids killed by a truck, and I've seen two or three roadside signs appealing for witnesses to accidents with serious or fatal injuries.

So it's pretty much like other places. People can get hurt, and big brother is not all-seeing just yet.

>> It feels as if western state-assisted assassinations of civilians are becoming a more frequently documented reality

And when were they documented the first time? It's much more plausible to believe that you are paid by the Chinese government to spread that rumor than to believe what you've written.

Is hitting someone by car really a plausible method? Do they just drive round the block over and over until they see the guy?

Definitely plausible. They know that he crosses the road at certain times. So they park a car nearby. As he's approaching the road, the car driver is notified and tries to hit him.

Or - they can simply kill him in other way and report that he was hit by car.

Why would you need to drive around the block over and over? Cars can be parked.

I'm guessing this is if you need to pull off the hit in NYC or San Francisco.

It's pretty easy to track a person without being detected, it's probably a little harder than deer hunting, but it's not impossible.

Not knowing much about it, I would assume that tracking people would be easier so long as you're in civilization. A deer would be suspicious at the site of any human at all. A human only becomes suspicious if they notice the same human more than once.