Of fast cars and big egos
Was leaning back in the seat on the double-deckered bus today, lazily staring out of the windows while the bus drags along in first gear up the slope in Clementi Road.
Like usual, the usual scene of impatient drivers in their pimped-up cars, ruby-red brake calipers, sleek shiny polished back body and loud garish decals. And at night you'd notice that the blue HID headlamps and the third brake light that flashes a punk slogan at night. And you can hear the squeal of the turbocharger revving up, the growl of the engine through a defective/modified muffler, depending on how you look at it.
What do they have to prove? What do they have to prove?
They're the very drivers who're too inept to control their clutch. Too inept to drive in the correct lane. Too inept to avoid near-misses.
Sometimes I'm really amused when some muscle car gets trapped behind a couple of cars waiting to turn left, while the behemoth of a truck just zips by in the next lane - because the truck driver knew which lanes to avoid, while the muscle car poseur just has no idea how to make stretegic decisions.
The muscle car driver then takes on the role of a hurt tiger cub whose shot at bravado had gone wrong, a furry puny car whose engine goes groaning softly.
The driver, in a wounded rage, switches lanes and revs the engine, only to be stopped by the next red light which the truck in front barely managed to get past.
Why bother? - You wonder. I wonder too. Those people probably bought their shiny fast cars to fufill a need in their ego, only to wreck their ego after finding out how inappropriate their cars are on the roads.
In Singapore where urban warfare predominates, you don't drive a muscle car that takes 5 seconds before the turbocharger even starts to warm up. You don't drive some supercar that's too wide to park or weave through jams. You don't drive a tank right into the tropical jungle.
Me? I ride a bicycle. Heh. Zips through traffic jams, low-cost (relatively) and doesn't make me look like some egomaniac.
5 comments:
Reminds me of that time when me and aik seng were cycling and a red sports car roared past us with its engine revved to the max even though it was downhill. Fast forward 5 min, that shiny sports car was parked at a bus bay, bonnet open and hazard lights on, as we cruised by laughing at the flustered driver.
And your analogy doesn't hold. The Japs drove tanks through the plantations of Malaysia. And the French were defeated by the Germans in WWII cos they thought the krauts could not get their tanks through their heavily forested rear.
*gotta make up for fri!*
ooh gono drop me a msg when you're free haha i guess da food poisoning should b betta can't wait to hang again! =)
Yucai: yeah some idiots mod their cars until they become super unreliable and all, if the rest of the car cant handle the increased engine power, still no point; as for tanks, yeah, but i need a visual kind of analogy to bring across my point in the post!
ryan: you drop me a message instead cause my schedule's more irregular! :D
nothing can beat thte "muscle cars" of malaysia!
proton saga with bodykit and altezza lights!
with defective power windows so gotta open door at every Plaza Tol!
Post a Comment