“…nothing but the wild rain”.

"...nothing but the wild rain"

Was heading home from a friend’s solemnisation lunch last Saturday when a sudden downpour hit.

The skies had been grey for some time but I thought the clouds would hold.

They didn’t, and I unfortunately was forced to take shelter at the SMU building.

It was extremely miserable and frustrating because I could see the skies ahead were blue and clear but the clouds were covering the portion of town where I was at.

A geospatial visual (I’m the blue dot and I wanted to head north):

Pek chek is when you are the blue dot and you're heading north but you're prevented from doing so by the thin band of clouds that are as inconsiderate as drivers going at 50km/h in the right-most lane.

I think I’m getting a bit too old for this and I’m wondering if it’s time to add to the stable and get an OPC.

POSKOD.SG: Ten Steps to Effective Driving

POSKOD.SG Graphic

Vroom vroom.

My latest article on POSKOD.SG.

Ten Steps to Effective Driving.
A guide to burning up the road. (Mostly burning.)

In addition to having good communication skills, Singaporeans have extremely awesome motoring habits.

That’s hardly surprising: 12% of Singapore’s land area is made up of roads, so getting around speedily means that you’re gonna need to get your Ma Chi on faster than a traffic light turns green.

Before you do so, however, here are ten steps to effective driving, the get-out-of-my-Singaporean way.

  1. Communicate effectively.
    In keeping with our culture of communicative excellence, don’t use your signal lights.

    Who invented them, and what are they for, other than to overwhelm drivers with useless information?

    Alternatively, communicate in a betterer fashion by signalling a right turn but making a left turn instead.

    Routine breeds complacency, and you’ve got to keep people on their toes – even if it means them keeping their toes on their brake pedal all the time.

    Here’s a quick quiz to test your understanding of this:

      Question:

      • You are approaching a junction. You plan to make a left turn into the filter lane.
      • There is a driver at the opposite end of the junction waiting to make a right turn.
      • Do you signal your intention so that he doesn’t have to wait in vain?

      Answer:
      No! Don’t demean him by assuming that he doesn’t want to wait for you.

  2. Be flexible.
    Jam on the brakes when other motorists least expect you to. Better yet – make abrupt U-turns.

    Inject a little spontaneity into what would otherwise be a mundane and boring drive.

    Here’s another quick quiz to test your understanding of this:

      Question:
      While driving, you realise you need to make a U-turn. What do you do?

      Answer:

      • Stay in the left-most lane.
      • Jam on the brakes.
      • Turn your steering wheel sharply to your right.
      • Make the U-turn.
      • Bonus points if you signalled a left turn before doing so (in keeping with Step 1).
  3. Keep a safe following distance.
    One bumper width is fine, especially in land-scarce Singapore.

    In fact, the closer you can get, the better – Singapore is all about motor-racial harmony.

    Furthermore, personal space is an alien concept introduced by corrupt Westerners, and has no place in a society built on solid Asian values like filial piety, meritocracy and ERP gantries.

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