On The Road

The return journey from work this evening took three times as long as I would have expected. No great mystery involved: an accident at the ERP gantry on the ECP near the new IR (this country loves its acronyms) closed the two outer lanes of the highway at a time when the traffic was beginning to get really busy.

But here's the puzzle: the accident took place on a straight section of a perfectly good road, in fine weather, at a time when visibility would have been excellent. And here's another: this sort of thing occurs with monotonous regularity on this road - I'd say three or four times a month. In fact, just last week I was three cars behind a collision between a car and motorcyclist which probably closed a couple of lanes after I'd managed to get around the aftermath.

In contrast, back home driving in Manchester in the winter, on fairly busy and often quite tricky roads (plenty of big roundabouts, for example) I can't recall seeing or being held up by a single accident last December. Now I wouldn't say English drivers are perfect but, despite the more complex road systems and variable conditions, it's one heck of a lot less stressful to drive over there.

The solution to this conundrum: the Singaporean driver. I'm told the driving test here is rigorous. I assume they make sure they don't allow anyone with a shred of road sense out there.