I've always thought S'porean drivers were pretty ok. I've not had much trouble with them. They signal when they change lane; they give space when I indicate I want to change lane; they don't go too fast -- sometimes they go too slow, even, on the wrong lane. The occasional idiot does try to beat the traffic lights, but on the whole my driving experience has been fairly tolerable.
But perhaps my perception has been coloured somewhat by the fact that most times I'm on the road, it's off-peak either before morning rush hour or the going home evening crowd. This morning, I experienced rush hour like never before.
Accident One closed off lanes 1 and 2 on the CTE and I sat in the jam for about a half hour crawling from my egress point to the next exit. En route, two fresh fender-benders caused even further lane obstructions; one a straight rear-ender and the other a miscommunication over a lane change. Both low velocity, thank goodness.
By this time, I'd had it with being on the road, so I abandoned my excursion plans and took the next exit home. Accident Four occurred as I gave way to this huge-ass construction truck signalling to switch to my lane. He had all the space he wanted, but he had to go sideswipe the white Mitsubishi sedan right in front of me. I could see the truck push the sedan towards the left lane where cars were still oncoming. Fortunately, the truck course-corrected before anything more serous could happen.
When the two drivers managed to stop for their mandatory arm-waving conference, I snuck a peek at the damage: sedan's driver-side door severely dented and scraped back towards the passenger door. With that kind of damage, the driver was lucky to even be able to wave his arms. He looked pretty pissed, anyway.
Spent the rest of the morning in bed with the covers pulled over my head. If Jack wants to hit the road, he can go on his own. I'm not coming out again for a while...
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