Category - Singapore

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.

(continued…)