"Queue-cutters, oh yeah, that's them....pretending that they're doing nothing wrong", read the title of a Flickr photo of several middle-aged women who have cut the queue to St Peter's Basilica. On holy tours you can find people who think only for themselves without sparing a thought for the people who wait patiently in line. At the airport they bully themselves into the queue with their trolley and in motor vehicles they pretty much edge you off to one side.
Google queue-cutters and you'd see that it’s dire out there. From Australia to Seattle, it's a worldwide epidemic. I reckon its not a bad idea to start a local website sharing pictures of them seeing that there's a lot of interest on it.
Many of us will admit to a particular reaction each time we see queue-cutting on the roads. Every morning at the end of the Tungku link you'll see motorists deliberately pass the ones who are in the right lane minding their manners, and then cut in. By these motorists I don't mean someone who took the wrong lane by accident. I mean the ones who pretend they don't see the 50 cars behind yours as they pass by to swerve in on some kind-hearted soul.
Queues are time-wasting for sure, but it is something you face with the rest of the drivers on the road. Road rules should be universal. And there should be a special place in hell for those who have no patience and no manners for queues.
Next to the place where they punish the drivers guilty of driving atrociously on the roundabout.
There are some places in the world where there are no roundabouts and I think this is telling. Roundabouts work if people are considerate. It's all about letting people in. Can it be said that the roundabout is the mirror held up against the soul of the nation? That you only need to look at how people drive around the roundabout to know the state of mind of a community?
Observe the third ring of hell aka the Kuilap Roundabout.
After you have waited patiently in the queue and in the correct (far right) lane to enter the roundabout, some joker will invariably enter from the wrong lane (far left) with no queue, cut across several lanes and into yours. Making everybody brake, upsetting the timid and not letting people enter when they can. Is it too much to ask to rely on your fellow road users to drive predictably?
It's not a bad idea to have affixed on your car roof a large screen connected to a camera on the dashboard that's able to record you at a press of a button. The driver in the car in front of you can now see your wild gestures of indignation. I'm being facetious of course. But it's true what they say; you really learn to swear when you learn how to drive.
Those in the queue all know the jam just grew a car longer because everybody has to brake for the queue-cutter. Predictable traffic round the roundabout mean less accidents and less jams.
Queuing, just like other everyday things you do like ironing and washing-up, is necessary but tedious, hard to take pleasure in. But I have a theory that if we don't address the issue of bad manners on the roads, we'll lose our sense of brotherhood off the roads. More of those who care not about others suffering the same fate, or worse.
For pesky queue-cutters I say install CCTVs, paint a solid white line, put up a sign, and impose demerits on their driving licence if rules are broken. All Brunei drivers would benefit from high awareness campaigns on roundabouts and road safety. We have to make sure we get our basics right.
@emmagoodegg
Illustration by Cuboi Art.
For the edited online version click here.
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