SINGAPORE: A Singaporean took to social media on Tuesday (March 4) to share an observation about bus drivers in Singapore driving at “breakneck speed.”
“Why are so many bus drivers driving at breakneck speed these days?” This was the question a new mother asked in an online forum. Sharing that as she takes the bus often with her baby in a carrier while her husband manages the stroller, she has observed that drivers seem to be going too fast. “These drivers don’t slow down for you to hail at the bus stop. If you don’t pay close attention and catch them from far away,” she said.
“They drive off before people get settled in. If you don’t sit or cling on quickly, you may get thrown on the ground if you’re not careful.”
The woman also wondered how the elderly and “other vulnerable people” cope with such fast-driving bus drivers. “Maybe it’s because I’m having to commute with a baby now; the difficulty of not having a car in Singapore is getting to me,” she admitted. “For the most part, we’ve been managing but had a couple of unpleasant experiences that made us really want to give up.”
She recounted two incidents in particular: “(1) A driver sped into the bus stop even though another bus was in front, didn’t see me hail or want to board the bus after someone alighted, and nearly closed the door on me and the baby in the carrier. The same driver also wouldn’t open the back door for my husband and stroller when he saw it was empty and made him walk it to the front door to board; (2) A driver sped off before my husband could secure the stroller to clasp, and my husband ended up getting flung onto his back on the bus doors because he wasn’t holding on to anything (his fault too). The driver also almost closed the doors on the stroller our baby was in while we were exiting. No reaction or response from the driver.”
The woman claimed to have called the bus companies to report the incidents, but she remains clueless about whether doing so has changed anything.
A handful of people responded to the woman’s post, with some echoing her sentiments. “It’s not just you; I also feel that bus drivers these days tend to be going at very fast speeds,” said one. “I noticed some of them even revving up the engines when the bus is stationary—feels like F1 and also consumes petrol unnecessarily.”
“These bus drivers also love to tailgate cars too,” shared another.
A third, however, shared that he and his wife experienced the opposite. “My wife and I don’t usually take the bus, but when she was pregnant, we did—mostly to go to KKH,” he wrote. “I have to say, my experience was quite different from yours. More often than not, we encountered drivers who, upon noticing my pregnant wife, would ask passengers to give up their seats. Of course, there were the occasional ‘pedal-happy’ ones who drove off before everyone was seated, but overall, our experience was okay. That said, we only took the bus about once a month, then later once a week as we got closer to the due date.”
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Featured image by Depositphotos/ marucco (for illustration purposes only)