"You ignore me, how, how, how?"

Sounds like the plaintive cry of a woman scorned. And we all know enough to beware that woman scorned.

Yet, often we Singaporeans are made to feel like the woman scorned. By the gahmen (and their extensions) we love. Gigamole feels that way sometimes. Important issues brought up often meet that deadly wall of silence. The icy stare. The cold shoulder.

Issues that continue to bounce off the wall of silence::

a] Illegal street racing. All we hear are the Ferrari engines that continue to roar down our city streets in the dead of night.

b] Lab explosions in the NUS. A lab accident after another, yet the Ministry of Manpower, for all their new empowerment through the WSH Act, and the NUS, continue to maintain their walls of silence.
 
c] Research misconduct. The Alirio Melendez story came and went. Yet for all Singapore's vaunted push for research integrity, the Melendez related dirt seems to have been conveniently swept under the carpet.

d] Unregulated wacko medical devices. The HSA sweeps some more dust under the carpet as they maintain their wall of silence of some pretty disturbing information about medical devices let loose in Singapore.

e] Disbarred doctors who can practice in Singapore. The latest question mark that needs to be unmarked by the Singapore Medical Council. Don't hold your breath waiting for an ans They'll intubate you!

You ignore me, how, how, how?

Has our traffic police fallen asleep at the wheel....again?

It seems like the illegal street racing problem highlighted elsewhere before has not been curbed at all. One wonders what the traffic police have been doing all this while. One of Gigamole's blog readers had pointed out that was this going on along Orchard Boulevard. Surely the Traffic Police cannot be aware? Surely it cannot be so difficult to clamp down on this? All it takes a a couple of discretely placed CCTV cameras, or speed cameras. Or even a strategically placed patrol car.

It really boils down to whether they want to act or not. All this talk about providing a racing track is pure hot air.  For once and for all, just go ahead and clamp down on it.

Get tough on speeding? Why the kid gloves in the first place?

DPM Teo Chee Hean posted on Facebook that he wanted the Traffic Police to get tough with reckless drives and speedsters.  Better late than never.

The question is why did the Traffic Police have kid gloves on in the first place? Why the reluctance to prosecute these illegal street racers? Why did they have to wait till the DPM chides them for being soft, and tell them to get tough?

Still, it was good that DPM Teo took it up. As I said, better late than never. Unfortunately it was 2 lives too late.

The Ferrari accident and illegal street racing in Singapore

Gigamole is not the only one in Singapore horrified by the fatal Ferrari accident 4 days ago. Mr Gerard Ee, Chairman of the Public Transport Council seems to have missed the point totally in rejecting what he felt were unfair and harsher calls to restrict high-performance cars in Singapore. But he may be right in that it is not the ownership of the cars that is the problem. It is the irresponsible and reckless behaviour of the car drivers that needs to be reigned in.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that the Ferrari was involved in some sort of street race. Perhaps not in a group, but almost certainly the driver was using the streets of Singapore as his own F1 race circuit. The comment from his wife is quite telling. The deceased Mr Ma was fond of driving his car in the middle of the night because there were few cars on the road.

Illegal street car racing is not unknown in Singapore. Several years ago people and the media were already reporting about it. There are videos on You Tube about it. It is not as if the Traffic Police does not know about it. They were supposed to have cracked down on this.

But no.... illegal street racing has gone on unabated. Read these posts about illegal street racing in the Trip Advisor site for Marina Mandarin Hotel. These posts are as recent as April 2012. So it is public knowledge that this is happening. Can it be that the Traffic Police is unaware of this? Read the post by Frequent Traveller. He called the Police at 3am, and the racing was still going on at 5pm.

So my question is, what the hell has the Traffic Police been doing? Are they really unaware that illegal street racing is going on? That these high-performance cars are tearing up our roads in the wee hours of the morning? Mr Gerard Ee, are you unaware of these illegal street races?

Can it be that the Traffic Police is really aware of these races, but have deliberately turned a blind eye to these races? Why they have done so can only be guessed at. Perhaps it is to allow the rich and irresponsible a place to play their fancy cars? To make Singapore an exciting destination and home for the rich and irresponsible?