I HAVE come to a conclusion regarding Singaporean drivers: Few hold any regard for traffic laws.
This is what I have realised since I started driving a year ago and began coming into contact with other motorists.
You might think I'm being presumptuous, but statistics back this up.
According to the Singapore Police Force website (www.spf.gov.sg), there was a jump in the number of speeding- related accidents, from 1,656 cases in 2006 to 1,766 last year.
Speeding-related fatal accidents also rose from 66 in 2006 to 74 last year.
What this means is that more lives were needlessly lost because some motorists chose not to adhere to the speed limit.
I have always been very respectful of our fine country's numerous traffic laws. I keep to the speed limit, signal before changing lanes and give way when I am supposed to.
But despite that, I've been a victim of speeding.
For instance, I try to empathise when a motorist overtakes my car abruptly without signalling - an action open to the charge of careless driving, which could lead to the awarding of 6 demerit points and a possible jail term.
I tell myself that he might be in a big rush and is aware of my Jedi-like reflexes to get out of his way.
The last straw for me, though, is that it is simply not enough that I obey traffic laws and quietly put up with people breaking them. I'm now so harassed on the road that I have to break them myself.
Take, for example, a common experience I have on expressways. I have been tailgated, "high-beamed" and even honked at when I was travelling at the stipulated speed limit on the extreme right lane of expressways.
In short, I'm basically harassed and taunted for obeying the law.
Actually, the only reason why I even travel on the extreme right lane is that I am forced there by road hogs on the centre lane.
These include lorries packed to the gills and huge gravel-transporting trucks travelling at a mind-numbing 60kmh on a highway with a 90kmh limit. These vehicles are supposed to be travelling only on the left lane.
Readers should try going on the slip-road linking the BKE to the KJE towards Tuas at 50kmh, which is the speed limit on the slip-road.
Once, I was hounded by a six-wheeler towing a huge concrete slab, whose driver was tailgating me impatiently.
I managed to escape his wrath not by exceeding the speed limit, but by escaping to the left lane.
I can't think of any realistic solution to this, besides suggesting that the police be more rigorous in enforcing the speed limit.
High-beaming and tailgating are motorists' rude and direct way of telling me that by making the choice not to speed, I'm moving too slowly to share the highway with them.
But I protest: Motorists shouldn't be pressured and harassed by other law-breaking motorists into doing the same.
