Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Diligent Singapore Drivers

Watch out for speed camera in Singapore

Have you ever travelled on the Singapore roads? Their roads are very clean. The environment is very green too. You can see the trees lining up in rows, with equal space and nothing goes out of place. It is not very difficult to drive in Singapore. Compared with most other countries, the people of Singapore drive according to their lanes. Switching lanes are also indicated most of the time. And when the cabs and cars are going to stop over, they flash their hazard lights at least in 9 out of 10 drivers. So what makes Singapore driving different from the neighbouring countries? Not very much, except that in order to own a car, one need to purchase the COE in advance. COE means Certificate of Entitlement, literally speaking. You need to bid (through a car agent or openly by yourself) like a market share. If your bid is successful (limited quota per month is given for owning of cars/release of COE), you are on your way to an approval which means you can now purchase your preferred car (based on the car size you bid).

Singapore tries to spread their drivers to all over Singapore, thus implementing gantry for Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) in Central Business Districts and also roads that are deemed to be congested during peak hours. Buses also get a special lane so that other traffic do not block the way and cause delays in their efficient traffic systems.

Speed limit is very controlled in Singapore. Highways are controlled to about 70kph to a maximum of 90kph. Nothing more than than or you'll be caught by the speeding trap located at certain points. Car drivers also pay their parking fines, speeding fines diligently. Cars more than 3 or 4 years have to be checked periodically and produced a certificate of assessment to make sure their car is approved for driving. Without this certificate of assessment, one cannot renew their road tax at all.

Happy Driving, in Singapore!

3 comments:

Mom Knows Everything said...

We have traffic cameras here too. A lot of people get tickets because of them.

Farah Deen said...

we have it here too, and a lot of people are fined because of speeding. anyway, as far as disciplined is concerned, singaporeans are more desciplined but again thats because of the strict fines the government impose on almost everything and anything- which is good!

Nick Phillips (15/03/1967 - 04/11/2022) said...

We had those traffic camera's here and it didn't do any good. Our drivers here are still as bad if not worse than before those camera's ...