Friday, November 19, 2010
The government seemed pretty serious in wanting to discourage car ownership in this land-scarce country of ours. Watching the news earlier on gave me the shock of my life - the certificate of entitlement has risen to a whooping $40, 000. With that sum of money, one can easily purchase a very decent car in other countries. When my sister was studying in Australia 10 years ago, she was able to get car for less than S2000. That can't even get me a set of wheels here.
People would naturally assume that I should be the happiest man on Earth upon getting that car licence two weeks ago. Contrary to popular beliefs, it was the opposite. I was more relieved than happy and simply because it was an issue that should have been settled during the first test. There are many variables in life that are out of our control and the traffic police test was one of them. Whether or not we get a nice tester really depends on the element of luck. This time round, a patient and friendly old man awaited me and he did his best to calm my nerves prior to the commencement of the test. His singing along the way did go some way to distracting me and my confidence grew when I emerged unscathed from the circuit. A trouble-free drive outside on the public roads wrapped up the test.
Six points it was and a simple debrief was conducted before I left the tester's room. During the mandatory viewing of the graduation video, I made friends with this Indian man and a Mynamar foreign worker who works as a technician here. Once again, being the ever-sociable person, I initiated conversation with those two since we were the earliest in the room. Congratualations and handshakes started the conversation. I actually discovered that the Burmese man actually knew how to drive but he was forced to undergo the whole training because the government doesn't recognize his licence from back home. It's really a waste of his money but the stringent laws are required to protect ourselves.
On my way to school this week, the Indian man (who's really a joker and typical Singaporean when complaining) was seen boarding the train at the platform. I called out to him and he smiled back. He passed the test then of course but still can spend the next 10-15 minutes complaining how the tester deducted that many points for not checking his blind spot. His rationale, "Anyone can see there's no car or person behind me when I did the directional change, so why bother?".
Compared to many Singaporeans out there who struggles to make a living or to put food on the table, I shall not complain about not having my own car for now. Weekends are probably the only time I get to drive and there's still the need to earn that element of trust from my family. The dilemma is pretty simple also, I can jolly well get a 3 to 5 years Hyundai Getz , Kia Picanto or Chevrolet Optra right now or save up a bit to get a Toyota Vios or Honda Jazz after graduation. The newpaper just did an article today on how brake pads gets worn out after 3 years of driving or 60 000km. Similarly, they mentioned how this customer got cheated when he discovered that the odometer of his car got rigged by a second hand sales agent.
For now, trains and buses will do fine. I'm definitely not a spoilt brat.
