last night when driving home, it was a pretty frightening
experience without actually being in a crash...
the sheer number of lunatics on the PIE was astounding.. and it
started before i was in the PIE... although there was one very nice
driver in a pick-up who gave way so that i could filter into the
correct lane to get into the PIE from Simei side
it started when i was trying to turn out from Expo... no cars so
i just turned and then signalled to go into the middle lane.. the
moment i signalled, there was a taxi which then accelerated as if
to attempt to cut me off.. the guy was moving at a leisurely pace
until i signalled and moved to the middle lane.. i quickly moved to
the right lane to turn right and the guy sped past me... if i had
delayed a bit, i think he would have smashed into me...
then i turned to go to the PIE.. an orangy yellow car then cut
in front of me and started to drive erratically.. speeding up then
slowing down and then speeding up again.. i needed to filter left
but this erratic pace of the car in front of me made it impossible
to do it safely, that's where the nice driver of the pick-up let me
pass..
that was the last nice and sane thing of the whole drive...
in the turn to the PIE, the guy in front driving a little Getz
seemed to drive a really wide car.. by driving in such a way that
people could not pass him while he drove at around 50km/h... a
whole slew of cars behind him looked back, saw no cars behind on
the PIE and accelerated hard to pass him get to the middle and
right lanes.. and the idiot also tried to "get into the middle
lane" making me the only one who could not pass safely.. so i bided
my time and passed him on the left instead...
nearing Paya Lebar, there was a Merc which came speeding past
everyone else (he must have been doing 150) in the middle lane,
then cut into the right lane behind a taxi a few cars in
front...
and each time the guy wanted to pass, the taxi would accelerate
to attempt to "block" him... so the Merc driver kept going into the
middle lane, speeding up and the taxi also speeding up to block
him.. this kept going for a while until a little past Kallang when
the horsepower of the Merc allowed the guy to accelerate away with
the blocking taxi seemingly attempting to "give chase" but the taxi
guy gave up quickly as it didn't have the horsepower to
follow...
further up after the Thomson area, a taxi driver decided he
didn't know how to drive curves but wanted to take the right lane
anyway... each time the road straightened, you could see he
accelerated hard.. and when there was a bend, he would brake really
hard until around 60.. this caused a minor "traffic jam" as not a
few times, chain reactions caused cars to slow until a crawl and
once causing everyone to brake really hard and stopping before
being able to go... he filtered left to the left lane around Eng
Neo...
the speed camera near the BKE should be removed because it
causes more problems and danger than it prevents... people know
where it is and then instead of cruising along at around 80-ish,
would panic and brake hard to around 65 just before the camera
causing a chain-reaction and slowing traffic around that area...
which always happens and happened again...
then.. there was a sudden "free-for-all" before the BKE when
cars and bikes decided to change lanes suddenly with no reason and
no indication.. there was a lot of honking of horns, braking, and
confusion... and they were not attempting to get into the BKE...
they seemed to be just changing lanes for the sake of changing
lanes.. this kind of stopped after BKE
after the BKE and Chantek Flyover, everyone seemed to be okay
until a driver of a Camry decided he was driving too fast in the
middle lane and slowed down to about 65 (i know.. i was behind him,
had to brake from 95 to 65) and everyone started to go around him
while he puttered away until a little past the polytechnic when i
ducked into the left lane behind a truck which was going at around
85 all the way to exit at Clementi...
it was amazing no one got killed, and no one crashed into each
other...
