Thursday, April 12, 2007

Who is Uglier?

Quote of the day: Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

I'm talking about motorists, especially car drivers. An unpleasant incident opened my eyes wider recently and has given me something to talk about Singaporean drivers.

I was on AYE, an expressway, driving home after work, and as usual my route is the same everyday. I put on my signals to turn into an exit, and slowly inched in. There was this equally black sleek car, a Toyota Camry, SDR 9599M, that was already on the exit lane before me, but it wasn't going any faster than me. And I was already approaching quite the end of the exit, so I drove faster and switched into the exit lane before it's too late, still with my signals ON. I didn't do anything sinfully wrong rightt? The Camry dude didn't seem to like that coz he flashed his lights behind me. Fine. Whatever. When we came to this double-lane road, the dude came beside me, and glared. I looked back at him, stone-faced without blinking. Then I turned away, and when I looked back at him, he was just putting his hand down after what I thought was giving me the indecent finger gesture. Well, I didn't see the finger, so it's not counted. Shameless ah pek.

From then onwards, I started to observe the drivers in Singapore. 90% of the time, when you put on your signals to switch lane, the cars will go faster to be ahead. That's one finding so far.

I asked Paul about KL drivers since he's been driving there a lot lately. He said most of the time, drivers give way. And they won't force/squeeze their way in either. So educated siah!! Or is this just many many coincidences.

If you're in JB, you'll find that the drivers are a bit uncivilized. They will find all means to beat the jam, like cutting queue, taking alternative lanes that will lead back to the main lane, which creates bottleneck and the jam in the first place. As long as there are space to occupy, they will do it... all in the name of I-want-to-bypass-all-these-stupid-people-who-queue.

The motorcyclists who work in Singapore are the best. They are literally kings of the road because they sometimes outnumber the cars, so they think they rule the streets. Regardless of whether you put on signal or not, they whizz pass you blatantly, won't slow down, won't move to the side, won't give a crap basically. They are probably the most stressed up motorist you'll ever see. It's all about TIME TIME TIME. MUST GET TO WORK FAST. MUST GET HOME FAST. DON'T GIVE SHIT ABOUT THE CARS AND LORRIES. I SWERVE HERE AND THERE BECAUSE I LIKE. JACK BE NIMBLE JACK BE QUICK.

Nobody loves traffic jams right, and it's here to stay whether we like it or not. Times have changed, more cars are going to be on the road, so why can't we all just give way to less stressful driving. Hey, that's a good bumper sticker phrase, " Give Way To LESS STRESSful driving". Gotta make one and start a revolution. Honk honk!

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