Singapore, famous for its morning and evening rush hour jam in many major highway. One may think that Singapore is not that bad comparing to other countries like India, Vietnam, etc. The problem is that the cost we pumped into road building to ease traffic conditions is astronomical and congested traffic is still prevailing.
So exactly what is the problem we are facing?
LONE DRIVERS
I personally opt to ride rather than drive to work. It will take me 1 hour more for 2 ways and twice the petrol required for the same destination. I squeezed through TPE, SLE joining into KJE and finally exit at Jalan Bahar. Be it going to work or returning home, I passes by hundreds of lone driver cars. The whole car is empty only with the driver itself. I dare to say that 90% of the cars jam on the road at peak hours are not carrying passengers. The amount of people that needs to travel through a certain route and time is fixed. There is 2 ways to solve this problem. Keep increasing the size of the road or reduce the space required. Forcing people to take public transport is, to me, an impossible solution.
I need a feeder bus to nearest MRT (15 mins) and a train ride to Outram tranfers to Boon Lay (70 mins). At Jurong Point another feeder bus to workplace (15 mins). A total of 100 mins excluding waiting time for 1 way. How about costing? $2.12 for MRT and about $1.40 for 2 feeders. 2 ways will cost me $7 and 200 mins. Let's look at riding...
2 years ago, I sent my car to Sin Ming LTA and converted it to a weekend plate. Ever since then, I received $1100 every 6 months from LTA and my road tax is slashed by near 70%. Insurance seem to be cheaper too. Before I did this conversion, I went to took up my class 2 lessons. Having a 2A license for a long time, it feel quite funny to join the youngster taking class 2. Nevertheless, I completed my test and obtain my license about 2.5 months later.
Back to riding advantages. It is measured at 34.7km according to google maps from my house carpark to my workplace carpark. The journey took me 35 mins travelling at 90 -100 km/h whenever possible. So let's be fair and look at 2 ways. 70 mins of travelling time a day and covered also at about 70km. Due to big bike (1300cc), I averaged an 19 km/liter. It required about 3.7 liters of petrol per day which is also $7 after discount. Guess what? I further maximize my saving to pump at Malaysia at RM 2.46 which workout to be 95 cents. With a 25 liters petrol tank, I saved about $24 every pump and my cost of travelling per day is only $3.50.
I understand that we should factor in motor parking, maintenance and stuffs. It is just the price of saving 2 hours travelling time per day. If it costed you $200 more a month to maintain a bike, divide it by 26 days will be $7.70 and further calculated to be $3.85 per hour saved. You just merely use $3.85 to buy back your 1 hour time. That is if you are riding a huge bike like mine. If you can accept a 200cc Honda Phantom, that 1 hour saved price will be even lesser than $3.85.
After beating around the bush for so long, what is my point?
1st May 1990 started COE system to control traffic conditions. How the hell did motorcycles caused bad traffic conditions? I can only see that it is a solution to ease bad traffic. With Motorcycle COE priced at $4,312 ,the COE in Singapore alone can buy 3 motorcycles in Thailand. I understand that the COE was bid to this price rather than set at such, but why did the quota set at 319 available for bid? Why is there a quota in the first place?
Driving a car to work is, in my opinion, a waste of time and money. If I'm really loaded, I don't mind spending it. I choose motorcycle because public transport is not a sound solution to me and LTA increase the COE which I don't see a point to impose. So the moral of the story is, 'I will get you one way or the other'.
It takes a minimum 14 theory and practical lessons for class 2B (trust me, it will be more than this number). 4 theory tests, 1 practical evaluation, 1 practical test and an average of 2 months test waiting time. Does it makes a new confidant road user? If it does, you won't spot so many hand-gun ku ku P plate on the road.
All these nonsense are just to discourage people from taking up license and use the public transport. So if you think that the system is sincerely to improve our road conditions, ask the person that set these systems to lick the cute passion fruit between my thighs.
Btw, did you notice that SSDC's website featured, "The Faster & Cheaper Way to Get Your Driving Licence". This is another joker that needed his back door stuffed up to the intestine trying to measure its throat.
写了都杜兰！
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