motoring madness

Driving on the roads in Singapore is stressful (no matter what vehicle you are in) and i'm sure everyone can think of an example of silly behaviour but the topic for my post today is merging lanes. *rant alert!*

Now, i think they don't teach this at driving school here, but overseas (like NZ ), merging lanes are common and the driver rationale behind it is simple: Merge like a zip. This means that cars should merge alternating between the left and right lanes, especially in heavy traffic. This is just common sense, but then we all know that common sense is an endangered species that is being euthanized daily by idiots everywhere.

So what happens here? People are kiasu, i.e. they are scared to lose, or they want to get 'there' (metaphorical destination) ahead of the other cars, or they just don't like to give way. Either way, they use their cars like battering rams, charging up ahead into the merged lane, even to the extent of driving on the shoulder, when it is not their turn to merge. In order to do so, they tailgate the car in front of them, so much so that at the merged lane, the car in the lane next to them have no place to go. Worse instances of this behaviour is when the driver appears totally oblivious to this and plows on straight ahead (full speed ahead! damn the icebergs!), now they could be pretending to be blur. Entertainment ensues when you get two of these idiots side by side (and you're behind them) and they both squeeze into the one lane, both pretend nothing is going on, and both scrape their fenders against each other. Karma!

/rant

Insulated from sound

Driver thought cyclist she hit was tree branch

HER car rammed into a cyclist from the rear so hard that he flew and hit the
front windscreen, cracking part of it, before rolling onto the road. But
Cleopatra Wong Yuin Ping, 30, thought the body that smashed into the windscreen
was a rotten tree branch that had fallen. She did not bother to stop and
continued driving her car along Holland Road. Wong was also unaware that her
victim's bicycle was stuck in the undercarriage of the Lexus ES300 belonging to
her father, despite the noise of the bicycle scraping against the road.
The bicycle was dragged for about 2km before it was dislodged.

(follow link for more)

I think the sound proofing in Lexus car must be really really good, in order for a driver to hit a cyclist in the middle of the night, then have said cyclist crack the windscreen of the Lexus, and then drag the bicyle aforementioned cyclist was riding on for a distance.

Maybe we should all drive a Lexus (or two), then we can all be insulated from external factors and concentrate on getting home safe and sound at night. Nice to stay with your parents as well, easy access to car(e) and insulated from (trivial) things in life as well, paying and maintaining your own home and car. Urgh.

Car troubles

After seeing the "Check tranmission" message light up a couple of times over the past month, it has finally caved in. Usually it would go away after awhile, but this time it was serious and needed the tow truck to get it to the workshop. The warranty was still valid after the previous visit to the workshop after my accident.

Thankfully i had parked at a decent lot that allowed the car to be towed and further, the lot next to me was empty, so more space to work with. I think the question of the night came from the uncle driving the tow truck:
"Eh, i can't find the entrance to your car park, can you drive your car out?"

Salaries

So i noticed that starting salaries of graduates have been published. For simplicity, i will reproduce the relevant parts (sans photos) below:

Accountancy: $2,400; ($2,500 for 4 year programme)
Applied Science: $,2,500; ($2,600 for 4 year programme with Honours)
Arts: $2,500; ($2,700-$2,900 for 4 year programme with Honours)
Business Administration: $2,600; ($2,900 for 4 year programme with Honours)
Communication Studies: $2,600 (4 year programme with Honours)
Computing: $2,800; ($2,900 for 4 year programme with Honours)
Dental Surgery: $3,000 (4 year programme with Honours)
Education: $3,000 (4 year programme)
Engineering: $3,000 (4 year programme in Aerospace, Chemical & Biomolecular, or Industrial & Systems )
Engineering: $2,800-$2,900 (4 year programme in Bioengineering, Mechanical, Materials, Computer, Electrical and Electronics)
Engineering: $2,600 to $2,700 (4 year programme in Civil, Environmental)
Fine Arts: $2,300 (4 year programme in Art, Design and Media)
Science: $2,500; ($2,600 for 4 year programme in Maritime Studies, Real Estate or Nursing)
Science: $2,750-$2,950 (4 year programme in Biological, Mathematics, Chemistry & Biological Chemistry or Information Systems Management)
Economics: $3,000 (4 year programme)

NB: all three year programmes unless specified.

So for the extra one year of your life and extra tuition fees, you get $100-300 a month. Fair deal? Many times, employers stress on the need for job experience, and would happily neglect the extra education a candidate has. Excuses that i have heard range from: irrelevant field, too high level to be practical, too academically minded (whatever that means). But at the same time, they fail to recognise that the extra education has also provided more maturity of thought and (sometimes) an ability to provide out-of-the-box solutions. To trade off, I suggest that employers treat the time spent on extra education as job experience and pay their people as such.

Also, i noticed that the starting pay for the legal profession is not listed, which is a pity because i would have like to see how much lawyers get when they first begin. Anyways, my own self-interest would be in salaries of people mid career. =)

In the same breath, i also read about this couple who own two cars but take public transport on the weekends. As civil servants, they earn $9k each? Wow. They work in Serangoon and Ang Mo Kio, but

To avoid having to ferry each other to their individual workplaces and risk
reaching work late, the couple decided to get a second car.

Which is really a waste of money to me since Serangoon and AMK aren't far apart to me, but then again, i don't earn $9k a month. =)

car troubles...

So after a long period of repair due to my accident, i was told to pick up my car yesterday. Happy days! Or not.....because driving home from the workshop, i stopped at a traffic light at Fort Road and found that the duologic gearbox was stuck in 4th and wouldn't shift down. Tried switching between "manual" and "auto" modes but it just wouldn't budge. In the end i tried restarting the engine, but it would have none of that as well. Had to call the workshop for a tow back as well as let WW know that she'd had to find her own way home (was gonna pick her up). Bugger!

Overall the repair job looks done well and i'm amazed they managed to make everything look decent. However, i noticed that my seating position, steering wheel and mirror adjustments have all been altered which means someone had been driving it, and probably screwing up the logic in the gearbox. It is a finicky gearbox, granted, that was why i took care of it, but i guess those guys managed to mess it up for me in a short stint. Gargh.

Airy automobile

As a follow up to my previous post, we are now in the market for a car, as the two scenarios of our present car end with losing it: a) insurer declaring it a total loss and paying us market value (not much) and b) insurer repairing the car then we sell it (for safety reasons).

Option b gets us more money, but entails fighting the insurer from declaring it a total loss. I think i'm going to go through some hair and blood loss in dealing with them, and all the 5 cent 10 cent comments people offer do not really help even though they mean well. Sigh.

So anyways, a friend was selling his 1-series beemer convertible at a reasonable price (wouldn't call it cheap!) in that with the increasing car prices, we wouldn't make much of a loss on it after a year or two. However, price aside, the car would be difficult to use as a daily family car, given that it only has two doors, usable 2 backseats and a tiny boot, which may barely be able to take our pram. The idea of owning a convertible of course appeals but the reality of running it to the mall for groceries and other stuff might derail this thought. Which is a pity, because being rear-wheel driven really gives it beautiful handling, once you get some speed. May explain why ww found it hard to perform a 3-point turn as she struggled to turn the steering. Nice to have a drop top although the guy was saying it was only the second time he's ever lowered it, as weather in SG doesn't really help!

We also visited VW, Volvo and Subaru over the weekend to scope out new car prices, which are steep! Really bad time to buy (although you wouldn't have thunk it with the amount of people in the showrooms!!) with COE prices so high.

Sigh

Car sigh...

There is a possibility that we might be changing car sooner than we thought. This is because I managed to prang the car while driving to soccer a couple of Saturdays back. The accident happened at exit 10A of the ECP (going towards Changi) and occurred after rain had been pouring the whole day and was just easing up. I lost traction while heading up the off-ramp and hit the reinforced wall with my front left corner, then managed to limp to the side after.

It didn't look as bad on first glance as it was a low speed impact (none of my 6 airbags deployed), but the damage was more than skin deep. Am looking at a
new: bumper, headlights, engine mounts,
repairing: chassis (cracked), bonnet, left fender, left front rim, front axel

On the upside, I was alone in the car and only came away with a few scrapes and bruises.

Sigh

Saab 9-5

I think i found a car to ponder, pictures here. Now looks-wise it does take some lines from popular kimchi cars, but bear with me.

That interior is just beautiful. I must admit abit of gadgetry lust here (was taken by the BMW 335's electronic joystick-type shifter).

On the upside, the 9-3 will be cheaper and hopefully i'll be able to pick one up secondhand on the cheap. =)