Apr 8th, 2008
Jaywalking an expressway
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I just have to get it off my chest. I almost crashed my car 30 minutes ago because a idiot/moron/imbecile/bonehead/dimwit ran across the AYE. Here’s what happened.
I always get on the AYE in the morning via the Pioneer Road North exit to get to NUS. This morning was no different.
I exited the roundabout underneath the flyover to get on the slip road that leads onto the expressway. There was a Mercedes cab in front of me. As the slip road is quite long, by the time you enter the leftmost lane of the expressway, you usually would have accelerated to about 70 km/h or even more.
I kept a distance of about 3-4 times the length of my car from the taxi in front. I saw that the taxi was reaching the end of the slip road and was going to merge into the leftmost lane of the expressway so I looked to my right to check if it was safe to merge into the expressway as I would be reaching the end of the sliproad in a matter of seconds.
When I looked back, I realised that the taxi in front of me was grinding to a halt and I was less than 2 car lengths behind at a speed of about 70km/h. I jammed the brakes but it was obvious I wouldn’t be able to stop in time so I swerved to the right, narrowly missing the taxi. Thankfully, there were no cars in the leftmost lane of the expressway (I had already checked earlier and I knew there were no cars but I am still thankful because if there were cars, I couldn’t avoid crashing the car at all).
After bringing my vehicle to a stop, I looked to my left to see what happened and guess what? There was a man who was walking on the road shoulder towards the expressway exit. My wife, who was freaked out, said later that she saw the taxi driver gesturing somewhat obscenely at that man. I guess what probably happened was that dude ran across the expressway.
Honestly, jaywalking an expressway? You got to be kidding. It’s bad enough to jaywalk across a major road such as Orchard Road but jaywalking an expressway takes the cake. That man seriously has balls of steel (and a heart of iron too). And nevermind the fact that he has the guts to jaywalk an dual-carriage expressway of 3 lanes each. It is damn bloody inconsiderate to do that because he can (and he almost did) cause an accident.
I still can’t believe that someone actually jaywalked an expressway during morning peak hour traffic.
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Wow, that’s probably a close shave. Glad that there wasn’t a crash. Couldn’t have believed that things like that can happen really, but seriously that was really a jerk-ass move by the inconsiderate guy.
And imagine that if actually someone actually knocked into him, someone will get penalised (unfairly?) for it, or get hauled to court to suffer unnecessary mental trauma.
Thank goodness, you are OK in this incident. I have seen people walking or cyclying on the shoulders of the expressways, I have seen people attempting to cross the expressways (eg ECP). They are likely to be people who are not familar with the way our expressways worked here. They may be able to do that in their home countries.
Did he have a car breakdown or accident himself in the inner lane and needed to walk away from his disabled car? Actually I wouldn’t even do that…I would wait for help.
Is that jaywalker an indian?
Am not a racist,but noticed that they seem to have this habit.
Not the local ones…those foreign workers.
Kevin
Still, thank God that you are fine! I can’t believe someone ran across the expressway, even after you described it, furthermore with the morning traffic.
@kevin: yea, I kinda agree too. Seriously not against the any racial groups, but the situation along Little India is equally bad whenever I drove past that area. It maybe a common sight to walk in this manner back at their homeland.
Perhaps they need that morning dose of excitement to get their day going. I don’t know. Ha.
Again, thank God (again) no accident!