Seth Sara

We live through life trying to be nice. To earn an honest living. To be conscience-free by doing all the right things. We are nice to little animals. We are polite to the elderly. We give up our seats on the buses and trains, sometimes to ungrateful brats who prefer to jump up and down and perform acrobatic feats, leaving our seats empty, and us, tired but too embarrassed to reclaim out rightful seats. And most importantly, we queue up when we are required to, or even, when we are not required to, we choose to stand in line politely, out of habit, or out of fairness? We queue for food at the canteen, we queue for buses, sometimes we even queue to enter the toilet cubicles!

Visitors to the country admire our organization skills and orderliness. They think Singaporeans are very well brought up, or maybe, they imagined there must be a fine imposed on those who don’t queue, thus the obedience! We are indeed a disciplined lot, well-trained by our government, our many courtesy campaigns, thus our very militant behavior.

So it is, on my way back from Malaysia last night at the Tuas checkpoint, we were presented with a very unpleasant surprise! There were 3 lanes, 2 lanes for cars and the third for buses. Being the usual obedient Singaporean, we joined the queue in the first lane. That is, even though the third lane was empty, with the occasional bus passing. Ah, then came the hooligans, the law-breakers, those ‘not-so-intelligent’ folks who never went to school and never learnt the courtesy campaign. Those that jumped queue, drove on the third lane and then tried to cut back into the second lane at the front, near the checkpoint. Soon, 2 lanes of cars turned into 3, with lane 2,, the law-abiders, squeezing towards the first lane, as they refused to give way, they had to swerve to a side to get forward. Finally, the fellas in the third lane managed to squeeze completely into the second, those in the second became the culprits pushing into lane 1. And lo and behold! Cars continue to keep coming on the bus lane and trying to squeeze into the second (or now third) lane. At one point, we had 4 cars in 2 lanes! Our side mirrors were an inch away from that of the next car. Man! Were we hot! I was ready to stretch out my hand and yank the side mirror off the stupid mercs beside me! Grrrr…

We wonder, where are the traffic police in this? Aren’t the customs people doing anything about it? No my friend, no! Those hooligans managed to squeeze into the queues, despite horns and curses that really, don’t affect them at all! So thus, yay! They managed to cross the checkpoint, no sweat, maybe saved half an hour of waiting time. Well, maybe next time I shall try that too? =/

Hmm.. talking about order and discipline. Are Singaporeans really so deprived? They have been so freaking controlled by law and order in Singapore that once they are let out into another country, they’ll behave like birds out of a cage! Creating havoc, doing what they have not been able to do in Singapore. Well, if you drive on the Malaysian highways, you’ll never fail to notice the number of Singaporean cars zooming past at top speed. Overtaking, cutting lanes, even tailgating and chasing other cars out of the way, even cars of host countries! And well, to my glee and delight, I noticed too the alarming number of Singaporean cars being pulled aside by the Malaysian traffic police! Sigh, and the government is worried about money out flowing into the Malaysian casinos. I suppose money going to the summons and fines, and maybe even bribes, may outweigh that of money lost through gambling.

Oh well… and it’s really getting into me, this idea that if every car that violates the traffic rules at the check point is booked daily, and the money goes into our economy, maybe we wouldn’t have to face so many fare hikes, ERP hikes or whatever excuses they can find to make us pay! And most importantly, we wouldn’t be so outraged by scrums that cut queues and think that they are the only people on earth who are in a hurry.