From ‘Rattled by rattling buses’, 24 Feb 2011, ST Forum online
(Ong Tiong Meng): LAST Thursday, I took SBS service 143 from UE Square to Scotts Road and back. Both the double-decker buses I was on rattled non-stop throughout the whole journey.
On Monday, I took service 64 from Sim Lim Square to UE Square. It was not a double-decker bus, but it rattled non-stop too.
I hope the Land Transport Authority monitors the bus services as the rattling reminds me of the old days when the buses were operated by private companies.
Perhaps we can learn from Britain where the buses are rattle-free and the drivers do not execute knee-jerk stops at bus stops to the detriment of senior citizens.
Senior citizens are probably more rattle-intolerant than the rest of us because any form of vigorous jiggling in their seats causes their dentures to come loose and send a sound similar to a firing semiautomatic pistol resonating directly through their frail and hollow jawbones into their heads, so I guess they can be forgiven for making a fuss about anything so disrupting as the incessant ticking of a clock, the sound of newspapers fluttering under air-con or the swiping of fingers across a touchscreen. Of course it’s disappointing that our buses rattle, what good is a journey if it’s not as smooth and quiet as riding a cloud-mobile considering how much we pay for pubic transport, or that you can’t lean you head against the glass pane to grab some shut eye without suffering repetitive concussions? I mean, nobody should make us think that we’re sitting in a hunk of assorted metal on wheels, and no one, elderly or not, deserves to have their daily commute turned into a mobile Stomp! concert. By all means, hire foreign bus drivers who don’t know what Ulu Pandan is even if they drive past the area everyday, let aunties hog empty seats with their market catch all they want, but please, for the love of God, let us have our rattle-less buses at least. This, amazingly for a country that boasts of first rate public transport infrastructure, has been going on for far too long, as seen in this letter below(16 Aug 1971, ST)
Filed under: 1970s, 2011, Noise, SBS Buses Tagged: | Noise, SBS Buses
