This author is currently on hiatus for the ignoble cause of mugging. The public is advised to remain calm, as this routine protocol has been shown to have no effect on one's violent tendencies in 96% of cases.
| Wednesday, January 31, 2007 |
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Public transport in Singapore is getting weirder and weider by the day. The following incident happened to me on the SMRT bus 852 yesterday, but i was too busy to be able to squeeze in a post b4 i went to bed. :( So i was with Glendon (another HSSRP member) on the bus, seated rather close to the front. There with this lady in her 40s standing a bit in front of us, beside the driver's seat. She looked more high-class than an auntie, though almost as old, which is why the term "old lady" seemed to be more appropriate for her. At the bus stop outside MacRitchie Reservoir, the bus went into the bus lane, but apparently seeing nobody with the intention of boarding, the bus just sped by. It paused a few metres away from the bus stop, waiting to cut back into the main road, when the lady walked up to the bus driver to inform him politely that there was this boy at the bus stop whom the bus had missed. The bus driver got irritated, retorting in Chinese, "What do you expect me to do? I'm already past the bus stop!" To which the lady replied (in Chinese), "No, I was just informing you that you didn't pick up that boy." There was a sudden surge in ager levels as the bus driver suddenly started spewing a mix of Hokkien and Chinese vulgarities at the lady. She kept silent this time, for what could she have done against a raving mad driver? Yet the driver continued insulting her, calling her a "crazy woman", among other chains of quick-fire words. He even shouted at the lady to "get off the bus and go take a taxi home, don't come and create trouble." By this time, the bus had reached the next stop (with everyone awake from all the shouting) and the bus driver lashed at the lady for supposedly obstructing the entrance, harshly telling her to "go to the rear, I don't want to see your face." To which the lady coolly obliged, with a hint of resentment in her eyes. She then whipped out her mobile phone and called the SMRT hotline to complain to them about the rude driver. The bus driver appeared to realise what she was doing, and this infuriated him ever the more, causing him to yell profanities at an increase rate. Probably not quite a good move, since he could probably be heard on the other side of the line. At the next traffic junction when the bus was stopped at a red light, he got out of his seat and stormed towards the lady, who was still talking on the phone. Again he reiterated his demands for her to get out of the bus, except this time with a tone more of exasperation than fury, probably since his job was at stake. But the lady completely ignored him, and he returned to the steering wheel in a huff for the lights had changed. Yet for the rest of the journey, he did not cease his ramblings and continued hurling abuse at the lady, who by this time had retreated quite far towards the back of the bus, more so due to passengers piling into the bus than out of fear of the bus driver. It was only when the bus was jam-packed with commuters that he finally realised that it was pointless for him to continue on with his rants. Talk about promoting courtesy in Singapore, when the promoters themselves are rather crude. I won't be surprised if the bus driver operating TIB 365 E (yes its an easy combination to rmb) at about 5.30 pm on Tuesday is sacked. In fact, i will be very glad if that happens. I'm sure the bus operators have sufficient resources to hire staff with much better attitudes, or at least put them through courses to mend their uncouth ways. Of course, this is not to say that there are courteous bus drivers out there; rmb the driver ive just talked about in the previous post who actually bothered greeting passengers? However, one black sheep could easily ruin not just the image of Singapore's "world-class" public trasnport system, but the face of Singapore in general as well. Imagine if there had been tourists or foreigners on that bus at that time. They would likely be put-off by that single incident, and leave with the notion of ugly Singaporeans. We definitely don't want ourselves to be stereotyped in such a negative way. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:22 pm.
