Pioneer Road Accident The Result Of A Bad Habit
Yesterday’s major road accident along Pioneer Road that featured a 5 lorry pile-up and over 50 injured has led to a major debate on the safety aspects of ferrying workers on the back of lorries. I wonder if I am the only one who noticed that the attributed cause of the accident involving more than the initial 3 lorries was not that workers were being ferried by lorries, but a bad habit of many drivers along Singapore roads that has had me (and many others) fed up, especially during peak hour traffic that often involves traffic jams and road accidents.
That bad habit is to slow down and start staring at incidents or accidents that have occurred near you while driving. Now it might be natural for everyone to slow down as the instinctive reaction is to make sure you don’t knock into anyone else and it is a safety barrier. But most drivers slow down and then start staring at the accident like what might have happened in the Pioneer Road accident, trying to figure out what went on and, of course, a major like of many Singaporeans - doing their best to spot the car plate or license numbers of the accident vehicles.
“What for?” you may ask. So that they can scoot off to the nearest Singapore Pools 4D outlet during lunch and buy the numbers in the hopes that they have the next ‘lucky’ 4D numbers to hit the top prize. It might not have been the same intention by the lorry drivers involved in this Pioneer Road accident, but allowing yourself to be distracted by accidents other than to slow down and drive safely is causing major road hazards.
Unfortunately there might not be an easy solution to this. It is after all, human nature, and most people are curious as to what happens around them, especially in morbid situations such as the Pioneer Road accident. Even more unfortunate is that curiosity may kill the cat, or us, in this case.
Watching vehicle accidents while driving is called “rubber-necking” because everyone slows down and stretches their necks to see what happened. We Americans do it because we’re nosy.
Shawn, I believe people are generally nosy too here but you can often see many actually stopping their vehicle for a moment to survey the wreckage and mouth away. Very dangerous.