There are something that i've noticed about driving in S'pore, which i find to be not so clever (note that i didn't use the word "stupid" to be politically correct ) as compared to Malaysia:
The "i-love-my-backside-in-first" parking habit
Just drive around any parking lot and it is not hard to notice that most of the cars are parked astern (more generally known as gostan paking). Those with their backside facing out are either 1) in a rush, 2) Malaysian cars, or 3) S'pore cars driven by M'sian.
Cars reversed parked in S'pore
Cars parked in JB
In JB, we seldom reverse-park our cars unless the angle of our cars require us to do so when we spotted the parking space. I don't understand why the cars should be parked astern. Some may say that it's inconvenient to drive out from the parking space if the car is facing in. I don't buy that -- the inconvenience is either during parking or leaving. It gotta happen once; you either reverse when you park, or you reverse when you leave. Between the two, i would choose the latter for three simple reasons:
- it's faster to just drive into a parking space than to park astern, and this will be useful when i'm competing with another car for the same space;
- i wouldn't wanna hog the traffic by having the cars behind me to wait for me to park astern, especially some people may be rushing for movie or something; and
- if i were to deliver all the things i bought to my car with a shopping cart, it will be more difficult to reach the car boot if it's inside rather than outside.
This should be a well-known fact as Mr Sim Wong Hoo from Creative Technology has coined the phrase "NUTS" (No-U-Turn-Syndrome) to describe the S'porean mentality. Unlike JB where we are allowed to do a U-turn at any traffic lights unless there's a No-U-Turn sign, S'pore is the opposite. Unless specifically said so with a U-Turn sign at a traffic light, U-turn is not allowed by default.
U-Turn sign in S'pore
No U-Turn sign in JB
The "not-so-express" express ways
M'sian call it the highway, and S'porean call it the express way. The maximum speed limit for the express way in S'pore is only 90km/hr, as compared to M'sian 110km/hr.
Express way speed limit of 90km/hr in S'pore
The irony is that most S'porean own big cars that can easily accelerate to more than 100km/hr, while M'sian drive cars of smaller cc like Kancil or Kelisa. No wonder we can see many S'porean speeding at our highways. Where else can they possibly make best use of their fancy cars?
The "so-what-i'm-driving-slowly-on-the-right-lane" attitude
It is a common road courtesy in M'sia that whenever we are driving on the right lane and if there's a car coming towards us at a high speed, we would just give way so that it can drive pass smoothly. Not so in S'pore. Some drivers would just happily drive at the right lane with a speed way below the maximum speed limit. No matter how you flash the head lights, put on the signal, driving closely behind them to intimidate them, honking at them, or even swearing at them, they would just continue on like their grandpa owns the roads. Ok, sorry, i should leave the elderly out of this, but... well, you get my point.
The "i-don't-give-a-shit-if-you-are-stuck" traffic light system
The first time i was driving in Singapore a few years back, I almost had an accident because of this. In a T-junction with traffic lights, the traffic light system goes this way: first both the lanes opposite each other get the green lights together. Cars are only allowed to go straight but you can proceed to turn right if no car at the opposite lane is going straight.
After that, the lights will change to red and the right-turn arrow will change to green at both lanes. So now the cars at both the opposite lanes can turn right only, and normally this right-turn sequence lasts for a shorter time, plus you gotta let the pedestrian to cross first at the lane you are turning into.
There isn't really anything wrong with this kind of system but there are two potential problems for the drivers:
- At some major roads with four lanes, the second lane from the right normally have this arrow drawn on the road indicating that cars in this lane are allowed to go straight OR turn right.
So what happened to me once was that i was driving in this lane and when i came to the traffic light, the car in front of me didn't have the right-turn signal on. I thought it was going straight too but it turned out that this car actually wanted to turn right. So when the traffic light changed to green, i was stuck behind this car, not able to go straight. Because it was a major road with heavy traffic, i couldn't get out to the left lane, nor could the car in front turn right because of the flowing traffic from the opposite lane. Then afterwards, the right-turn arrow was on and i was forced to turn right too, driving away from my destination and going to don't-know-where. DUH!!! - At certain places with heavy traffic and many people (such as Orchard Road), the traffic on the right-turn lane may build up to cause traffic jam. The cars that wanna turn right are not able to do so during the go-straight green light because of the heavy traffic; when the right-turn light is on, only a small number of cars can make it because the right-turn sequence is normally shorter and there may be many pedestrian crossing the road. So these cars are stuck in a slow-moving right-turn lane waiting and waiting and waiting...
Traffic jam on the right lane at traffic lights in S'pore
In JB, the traffic lights do not work in this way. The system is very simple (maybe because our government has simpler mind) -- at any time, only one lane is allowed to move. This means that cars can go straight and turn right at the same time, while the other three lanes stay put to wait for their turns.
With this kind of system, driver don't have to worry about whether the cars in front are turning right or going straight, and the traffic can be cleared faster.
... hmmm.... 
... well... 
... er.... 
... ok, give me some time to think about it and i'm sure i can come up with something in the next post.Updated: 27-July-2005, pictures added.
