In keeping with the brownian motion of my thoughts, I decided to write about car drivers in the fine city of Singapore where I have lived for the past 12.5 years, and have switched 3 cars in this period. Science-challenged folks reading this post are invited to read about Brownian motion theory at Brownian Motion.
When a nation arrives at economically developed status in a short span of less than 20 years, as Singapore did between independence in 1965 and the mid-eighties, people around the world just marvelled at the focused governance and economic management of a city-state which was basically marshland in most areas in the early sixties. The population had a rapid rise from a few hundred dollars in GDP per capita to more than 20,000 dollars GDP per capita, bringing alongside general well-being in material wealth all around. Cars were especially symbolic of this phenomenon, though only one of the 5 “C”s that were chased in the pursuit of status recognition in Singapore society during the late eighties and nineties - these being, Cash, Credit Card, Country Club, Cars, and Condominium !
When I arrived in September 1993 (incidentally, I moved from Kuala Lumpur where I had lived for couple of years by that time), I drove into Singapore in my Proton Saga 1.3L manual car, made by Proton of Malaysia. I was just amazed at the skyscrapers along ECP, being tall condominiums, and had to struggle to keep my eyes on the traffic. The roads were fabulous, even better than Malaysia’s roads - and the traffic was orderly to my untrained eyes. I saw new cars all around me and I wondered “where were all the old cars ?”. Little did I realise that Singapore moves faster than Malaysia, and it was already an economic powerhouse, and had strange car ownership rules to keep the roads shiny with new cars. In India where I came from, cars are forever - you buy a car, and it stayed with you throughout your life, and still ran well even though the dies that were used to engineer the car were as old as independent India. But I soon found that in Singapore, you can’t be too emotional about any purchases, let alone your own car. Cars had a fixed life here, and after that life of 10 years, you either scrap the car or buy a piece of paper which would let you keep the car either for another 5 or 10 years. The government also levied additional road tax on such cars, making it uneconomical for most car users to own older cars, except for the well-heeled ones who decided to keep their emotional affinity with their older cars for their lives.
Obviously, I had to return to KL and dispose off my Proton car (WCP 8730), though nostalgically reminiscing my first days driving that car around KL and outside KL during weekends. It was a good, well-made Mitsubishi model car, with very less maintenance problems. I sold it for a good price, given the waiting time for new Proton cars !
I could not stay for long in Singapore without a car - I did use the bus system and the MRT in the early days - but the car bug bit me strong. What shocked me were the sticker prices on new cars - it was 1994 - which I thought were ridiculous by any measure. So, I decided to go look for a second-hand car. The usual classified shopping finally led me to an expert salesman who sold me a Nissan Pulsar with very little effort. My wife witnessed my purchasing behaviour, and warned me to be more circumspect in future, because she was not happy with the high-pressure sales tactics used by the salesman, and doubted that the price was inflated. I belatedly learnt that I paid a couple of thousand dollars more than I should have done, and also found that the colour of the car was wrong for a person working in a corporate organisation - it was red, I liked it, but Singapore was uptight and straight-laced in these matters - I learnt from my friends only housing contractors drive red cars. While I am normally a person not given to such innuendos, I had to worry about my acceptability in a society where I had come to make my life afresh. I could not liquidate the car so soon, but was careful in its use so as not to show it off. It was a decent car, and did well on mileage. Some minor maintenance problems were there, but none major.
During this period, I found that Singaporeans were not good drivers - it might sound strange coming from a person like me from India where the road manners and road conditions were horrible, to say the least. However, my expectation of a developed country was just that - I was shocked to see behaviour on roads in Singapore that was inconsitent with the economic status of the country. I saw order in Australian and American roads, but not in Singapore roads. People were not courteous, and assumed that if you wish to move to the right (we drive on the left side of the road) it must be because you wish to overtake, just to be one car ahead. If you wish to move to the left so as to exit from a highway, the drivers blocked you, many times forcing you to “hang” in the second left lane waiting for a break. If you raced a bit, meaning go fast, all others around you joined the race. I encountered very strange behaviour, such as cars you had overtaken for some reason, followed you wherever you went ultimately, and gave an eerie purr before leaving you in the dust. I was left wondering whether I had arrived in a country full of race car tracks and race car drivers, who followed no rules.
It was little wonder then that I saw government imposing strict restrictions on road usage and traffic control all over the island. It never ceased to amaze me that the road conditions in Singapore were constantly undergoing change, hopefully for the better, all through the years. One innovation which captured my attention was the “B” signal for public buses, which allowed them to move ahead of the rest of the traffic at key junctions. The pedestrian crossing was one place wherein I saw most Singapore car drivers showed their best behaviour, even till date. They slowed down, sometimes intimidated by the flashing yellow lights, and sometimes reminded by the fines imposed by traffic police, which were always well covered in the local press.
The time for my next car purchase just happened on its own - again, men are quite impulsive when it comes to cars - and I had this economically unaffordable fascination for BMW, without really knowing that they are a strange bunch of animals with their own brains and hearts. And, when a BMW 520i came in beautiful marble white colour from a friend and colleague at IBM who was moving to the U.S.A., I thought it would be foolish not to ride on it for atleast a few years. So, here I was in my proud white BMW, just 8 years old ! When I first rode on it, I felt like I was driving a tank - it was heavy and drank petrol off the tap as though it was a fish out of depth. I imagined that eyes turned toward me when I cruised around, but it was probably to look at the big car making some good noise showing off its age, rather than anything else.
The beauty of the BMW was that driving speed hardly affected the ride - whether it was 50 or 120 KMPH, it was a cruise no doubt. And, if you went too close to a Japanese car, you are sure to scare him a bit. Any dent will be costly for him, while it would not affect the heavy metal that much. Given that I was a little speedy driver, I had good fun with the car till it hit my pocket book on a rainy day, completely stopping in the middle of the road with a noise which sounded like it came from a hungry camel. I was a little shaken, and thought about going to the nearest workshop, but very soon realised that mine was a BMW which nobody except the original dealer would touch. Because BMW protected its cars against tampering, endowing the cars with smart brains.
Well, here comes the famous Performance Motors, the authorised dealers for BMW. Their main objective is to figure you out in a moment, while keeping their eyes trained on potential problems in your car, while simultaneusly listing all the parts needed to fix the current problems. It did not take the supervisor there to figure out that I was a first time BMW owner. He said that the problem was indeed major, and I should have taken more care before purchasing old cars - it would be critical to have them check out the car first before buying !
Well, the bill was huge, it was more than what I had spent in the last 8 years on car maintenance/repairs. Then and there I decided to get rid of BMW for good. After a few months, I went back to the safe hands of the Japanese, purchasing the tried and tested Camry, not knowing at that time that Camry was generally bought by old managers, not people on the move upwards.
I drove my Camry as though I was driving a Ferrari. It did well, and is doing well even till now - YES ! - I am still driving the same car for the past nearly 7 years, and it is a fantastic car. My regular car workshop guy tells me even today that my Camry is a great car - it should have no problem running its full tenure of 10 years. When my office colleagues sometimes made the mistake of asking for a ride in the car while on the way to a evening get together, I made sure they never forgot the ride of their life. Seat belts were not necessary when I drove the car !
I have seen a number of instances of road rage while driving all these years in Singapore, even to the extent of threatening a life ! The courts in Singapore finally made Singaporeans realise how bad it is to display road rage, when they started imposing heavy punishments for such behaviour.
I strongly believe there is a correlation between the nouveau riche status of a society and car driving/road rage. But that stage of economic status has passed by, and Singapore is now truly an advanced country in the league of the top 10 economically advanced countries. So, the bad behaviour is moderating now. People are more considerate on the roads now, to my knowledge - my recent experiences tell me that things on the road have improved somewhat. Singaporeans have to realise they live in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, and their behaviour has a direct impact on the perception of all living in Singapore. I have now learnt to drive more slowly, and I wait to let other cars pass by me, though sometimes it is not necessary. Cars indeed tell the story of a people in more ways than one.
Have a great week ahead.
VIJAY SRINIVASAN
19 Feb 2006
