A woman was seen having to use the side of the road as a toilet when she was caught in the five-hour traffic jam on the Singapore-JB Causeway last Friday (Dec 27).
A netizen uploaded a three-second video of the unfortunate woman on Facebook on the following day, which TISG understands has now been removed from the social media platform. In still photos from the video, woman is seen accompanied by a man who attempted to cover and assist her.
The video is reportedly still being circulated on the messaging platform WhatsApp.
In the now-removed video, media outfits report that netizens warned others to watch out for the feces so that they would not run over it. Others pointed out that where the woman used the toilet was actually walking distance from the checkpoint.
Some people have commented that the video, which serves only to embarrass the already-suffering woman, should not have been uploaded at all.
According to media outfit mothership.sg, a state assemblyman for Stulang, Johor, Andrew Chen Kah Eng, made a statement that was published in Sin Chew Daily expressing that he was distressed by what the woman had to go through. He also offered an apology to the woman.
Mr Chen added that if solutions are not found for the heavy traffic problems in this area, more issues of this sort may be expected, particularly in times when congestion is worse than usual, such as holidays, long weekends, etc.
The assemblyman from Johor mentioned that for this time of year, twice as many vehicles and people from Singapore traveled to Malaysia than usual, clogging the bus and car lanes coming into the country.
At present, clearances for foreigners entering the country take a while to process, which partly explains the mammoth build-up of vehicles.
Last month, Malaysia’s Home Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, emphasised the need to build a third link that would link Johor Baru with Singapore in order to ease the heavy traffic on the Causeway. He said this at the Johor state assembly on November 25.
The Home Minister is the chairman of the Special Committee on Congestion at the Johor Causeway.
According to Bernama, Malaysia’s national news agency, Tan Sri Muhyiddin said that this link could either be a tunnel or a bridge and that he has already told the federal government of this necessity.
The Home Minister said, “If the state government supports this, I will ensure this initiative be started.
Before, we used to have only one bridge. Then we had two bridges and now these two can no longer cope,” since congestion often builds up at the Second Link in Tuas as well as at the Causeway.
Mohd Solihan Badri, the state Public Works, Transport and Infrastructure Committee chairman, said that the Home Minister’s proposal for building the third link is a step in the right direction.
Bernama reports him as saying that the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine complex at Bangunan Sultan Iskandar, built in 2003, would have reached its full capacity by 2020.
The Home Minister echoed Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Tun Mahathir Mohamad, who also recently called for a third link to connect Malaysia and Singapore, due to a large number of vehicles going back and forth between the two countries. -/TISG
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