Passengers pushing the MRT emergency button

Posted on April 20, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Explain when train’s emergency button can be used’, 18 April 2013 and ‘Emergency button not for those caught between train doors?’, 19 April 2013,  ST Forum

(Terence Teoh Pin Quan): ON TUESDAY night, I was taking the south-bound MRT train towards Ang Mo Kio. At Yio Chu Kang station, a woman asked for help in a desperate tone, then pressed the emergency button on the train. I realised that an elderly man had his arm caught between the train doors. The doors did not re-open after the usual few seconds, and his arm was stuck for about a minute.

When the doors did open, the old man entered the train and was unharmed. However, an SMRT staff member came and demanded to know who had pressed the button.

When the woman owned up, he asked in frustration: “Why you press the button?” Later, when the train stopped at Ang Mo Kio station, the woman was detained and further questioned. Thankfully, another man stood up for her. When is the right time to press the emergency button? If someone gets caught between the train doors, are we supposed to wait until the train starts moving before we press the button?

Perhaps SMRT can clarify the protocol for using the emergency button.

(Lydia Fung): …I was caught between the train doors on the Circle Line last year. A woman inside the train tried to pull me in. I asked her to press the emergency button, but she said the button was not for this purpose, and that there was a hefty fine for indiscriminately pressing it.

I lodged a complaint after I got off the train at Paya Lebar station, but was told that the train was fully automated with no driver, and that there were cameras to alert staff to emergencies. I received a call from SMRT a week later, telling me the same thing. I asked that the public be educated on the usage of the emergency button, but nothing has been done.

The advice given in the SMRT Rider Guide website is that you may push the button (or technically the ECB, Emergency Communication Button) if you get caught between doors while ON the train, and assures us that the train would not move when doors are not fully closed. In the first case, the elderly man appears to be outside the train when his arm got clamped. Judging by the seniority of the victim and the probability of him having a heart condition, pushing the panic button seems to be the instinctive thing to do.  Strangely enough, in 1991, a passenger was lauded as ‘quick-thinking’ for pressing the ECB when a woman’s HANDBAG got caught between doors (MRT slams on handbag, 23 Dec 1991, ST). It appears that there are times when an inanimate object deserves more attention than a living person’s limb.

Sometimes, it’s actually better to alert the staff through the ECB than try to be a hero yourself. Last year, an elderly woman who got clamped got a ‘large piece of skin RIPPED OFF’ when commuters struggled to free her. In 1988, the button was expected to bring the train to a stop for children who failed to board the train after their parents.  One complained about a rude SMRT officer for not understanding the gravity of having left a 6-year old behind on the platform. It was an ‘emergency’ because a helpless child without a parent could have been ‘SCARED TO DEATH’. (See below for SMRT’s U-turn on ‘lost child’ policy) Most emergency hotlines are deliberately vague on examples of situations that warrant activation, because anyone can argue that something needs urgent attention as long as it happens to them.  I, for one, would sooner die of embarrassment if I were caught spreadeagled and squashed in the groin by the jaws of death before anyone would come to my rescue.

SMRT has also used button-pushing to explain ‘longer travelling times’ in a series of tweets in 2012.  A spokesperson also suggested that the button may be activated solely by people LEANING on it. With the crowds these days and the impending free ride morning rush, I’m hardly surprised. To some freeloaders, NOT getting to the gantry by 7.45 am to earn your free ride is a serious emergency indeed. But aside from people suddenly collapsing and carriages catching fire, you MAY push the button under certain special circumstances without a SMRT warden scuttling over demanding “WHY YOU PRESS BUTTON?!’ with a wagging white-gloved finger.

- When a glass panel breaks

- This excruciating scenario:

Apparently not urgent enough to let go of your Old Chang Kee

- When there’s FIGHTING over people flouting No Eating on Train laws. (However, in a 2009 poll, 52% of commuters voted NO to pushing the button when there appears to be an ASSAULT, especially if it’s gang related, not so much because of the fear of being fined $5000, but of becoming the next target in a gang raid).

- When someone looks like a terrorist about to bomb the train. In the same poll above, 51% would report a ‘suspicious character on board’. I highly doubt it though. I see suspicious characters all the time; they carry dangerous construction tools, smell bad, speak in coded language and nobody ever whispers into the ECB that there is a terrorist insurgence on board.

- When the train breaks down and you need to ‘talk to the train officer’. Unfortunately some commuters take train delays as reason enough to push the button and demand to know what’s going on, inadvertently worsening delays. A $5000 fine is well deserved for such counterproductive kancheong-ness. If Sticker Lady Samantha Lo had targetted ECB buttons instead of traffic lights, she could have saved us all a hell lot of time.

Don’t press until shiok, can

- When your lost child is trapped on the train. In 2012, Senior Manager Bernadette Low responded to a parent whose kid ran into a train without her by THANKING a female passenger for pushing the ECB so that the two can be reunited. Try explaining that to your boss if you’re late for a very important meeting. I think such parents need to pay a nominal ‘Lost and Found’ fee at least if it affects hundreds of passengers. Especially if it costs them a free ride.

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Filed under: 1980s, 1990s, 2013, MRT, Violence | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

The Case of the open MRT train door

Posted on June 23, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘So, was door of moving train open?’, article by Rachel Chang, 22 June 2012, ST

TRAIN operator SMRT has assured passengers that its trains will not be able to move off if the doors are not properly closed. This is in response to a picture posted online of a train supposedly running with one of its doors open.

‘We wish to reassure commuters that the MRT system is built with many fail-safe features to ensure passenger safety,’ the company said in a statement yesterday. SMRT also said it has looked into the matter and questioned the veracity of the picture.

…It also said that Ms Samantha Francis (content producer of STOMP), 23, who claimed to have taken the picture at Lakeside MRT station on Tuesday night, was not actually at the MRT station that day. This assertion is based on CCTV footage and Ms Francis’ ez-link card details, it added.

In the statement, an SMRT spokesman also said that the railings of the train tracks visible in the picture do not match those at Lakeside MRT.

No Open Door Policy

You know a nation is deprived of worthy news when it is gripped by something like a train door refusing to close, sensationalising it to a ‘mystery’ and ‘web of intrugue’ of detective story proportions. People seem more interested in knowing if (Oops!) SMRT did it again, rather than speculating why rich foreigners are falling more than 50 floors to their grisly deaths off Skypark, Marina Bay Sands. Where were the CCTVs then? Since Stomp’s Samantha has stepped up to defend allegations of duping the nation and no record of her presence was found, it’s either she got the station wrong, or she’s a shape-shifting vampire who can pass through gantries undetected and whose image evades video capture. That at least explains why she works for a soul-sucking website that encourages and rewards the shaming of innocent people in public, even if some ‘content’ turn out to be hoaxes like ‘Woman combs armpit hair on MRT’.

 In all these years in service, SMRT has accepted partial responsibility for crushing people on the tracks, apologised for breakdowns, lapses in security against Swiss graffitti artists, overcrowded trains and platforms , but fully stands by the mechanics of their train doors. Perhaps the fact that they’re are so good at clamping objects like grocery bags adds further support to use ‘fail-safes’ as a valid reason to question Samantha’s snapshot as physically impossible. It’s also the last saving grace for SMRT; they’ve had their share of cable tie, signal and power cable woes, even their escalators occasionally fall apart,  but hey, at least their  DOORS are still fully functional.

Fail-safe but not fruit-safe

Or are they? In 2010, SMRT conceded that the doors CAN OPEN A BIT when on the move, creating a maximum allowable gap of 10cm. Called a ‘push-back’ device, this is useful in a situation where things get trapped, like say the bag of fruits above. Is it then physically possible for a few strong men to overcome the opposing push-pull forces and pry a door open by more than 10cm? Judging by how someone had to break a window during the North-South Line breakdown for air, probably not. But curiously enough, this isn’t the first time that someone has complained of train doors opening in between stations, with SMRT again raising the guardian spectre that is the ‘fail-safe’ mechanism in their statement in 2010:

The train has been withdrawn from service and we are currently performing checks,’ the spokesman said, adding that all LRT trains are equipped with fail-safe features to ensure passenger safety. For example, a system ensures that trains will not be able to move off if the train doors are not properly closed.

Treating a hidden set of levers and pistons as a PR fairy godmother who comes to your rescue aside, what’s important here is nobody fell out of the gaping hole, if it in fact existed. And like their motto of ‘Moving People’ suggests, SMRT should do the same for this matter, do the necessary service checks and everybody just MOVE on already. If there’s anything good coming about this, no matter what the outcome and whether Ms Francis keeps her job, it’s that you’ll think twice before leaning against train doors, and especially think twice before posting anything from Stomp on Facebook.

Postscript: SPH editor in chief Patrick Daniel eventually apologised to SMRT for what turned out to be firstly a photo deliberately taken out of context (it was believed to be taken at a terminal station instead of actually moving) and a brazen attempt by Samantha Francis to con SMRT, resulting in her sacking. But what’s worrying about this case is the source of the photo, which Samantha claims to be taken off Twitter. Let’s hope it remains a microblogging tool rather than a microstomping one.

Filed under: 2000s, 2010, 2012, Bloggers, MRT | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Tay Ping Hui’s Free Transport Day is ‘cheapstake’

Posted on January 4, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Tay Ping Hui in online spat with Twitter user’, 4 Jan 2012, article by Leow Si Wan in sg.yahoo News.

Actor Tay Ping Hui is embroiled in a petty online tiff with a Twitter user. On 23 December, the star who is also a young PAP member, posted a tweet on his account, calling for SMRT to implement a “Free Transport Day” to make up for the massive train breakdowns.

A user, who goes by the Twitter username of smrtsg responded to his tweet, with a snide “@taypinghui is a cheapskate”. He also described Tay’s attempt to make his ‘Free Transport Day’ idea viral as “pathetic” and said to the actor, “What we do know is you don’t take the train.”

Tay then replied in a series of harsh-sounding tweets. He questioned “the authenticity” of the the twitter user, and described the user’s “attempt at humour” pathetic.

…He continued with “I should just let you embarrass yourself, but I feel obliged to open your tiny mind. One does not need to be in war to know its atrocities.”

“And since I’m in a giving mood, this is my feedback to you: you need to get a life and stop pretending to be something you are obviously not.”

Tin Ping Hui: Rolling Deep

Labelled a ‘troll’ in other news sites, ‘smrtsg’ proceeded to mock Tay Ping Hui for his rendition of Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’, a painful cover which is a sign that Tay should stick to his day job. Political aspirations aside, the actor’s humourless, retaliative response is pretty much in character with what he portrays on television most of the time. It’s ironic however, that he tells smrtsg to ‘stop pretending to be something you are obviously not’, when ‘pretending’ is very much the actor’s bread and butter. Here’s what the man had to say about the REAL SMRT compensating affected customers on 17 Dec 2011, according to his twitter account.

I propose tt SMRT be made to set a FREE TRAVEL DAY for ALL commuters instead of paying a fine. Lets take this viral. LTA, show us u care.

Obviously this was an attempt to use his popularity to garner some kind of online petition. I’m not sure how well thought out Tay’s plan to grant an island-wide open house was, since one of the possible outcomes of an unpredictable free-for-all is an instant replay of the breakdowns previously, confirming the inadequacy of the system rather than making up for its flaws. A random Twitter search of ‘Free Travel Day MRT’ to see how well this meme has spread since Christmas yielded zero results. And LTA hasn’t ‘shown that they care’. Earlier in the year, a Mediacorp colleague, again through Twitter, almost single-handedly brought down a famous grilled chicken chain with a call to arms against bad service and very expensive hot water.  Maybe the difference lies in the fact that the Nando’s boycotter is Joanne Peh, while this is merely Tay Ping Hui, an actor who’s as accustomed to wolf-whistles as SMRT is to an actual compliment.

Anyway, lacking the response he desired, his call for freebies was rephrased and re-tweeted on 23 Dec 2011.

Committees set up, apologies issued, & investigations launched. Great. Now 4 a Free Transport Day to show SMRT’s sincerity to its customers

It’s hard to tell from this tweet how serious his subsequent appeal was, though the drop in enthusiasm was apparent. That’s when the name-calling began, though one could argue that smrtsg was being satirical in calling Tay a ‘cheapskate’, a jibe which the latter  took a bit too personally instead of playing along, which would have been the smarter way to manage a SMRT imposter. But let’s go back further before determining if smrtsg’s accusation is valid.

In Sep 20, 2011, it was reported that Tay posted the following on Twitter following a Circle Line breakdown.

“Circle Line is down this morning. This time, punishment should be to provide free rides for commuters and not paying a fine to the authorities as usual.”

Which makes Tay some kind of Free Rides champion. Nevermind that he majors in Political Science and Economics, or drives a Mercedes E-coupe rather than taking the train.  Speaking up for the common people is part of the fundamentals of politicking. So technically, if Tay doesn’t need to take the train but is calling for free rides for the supposed benefit of others (even if that benefit is not clear), he’s not ‘cheapstake’ so much as offering a rather ‘simplistic’ payback and getting noticed. But leaving the impression of a smart-aleck, stuck-up , bullying wannabe-politician-activist aside, this is a man who, 10 years ago, actually INTERVIEWED himself in a guest column in Today, where he came across as an actor who doesn’t really care about what people think, his fans included, and  is inspired by the ‘Stanislavski’ method for his work, which probably gives you results as boring as it sounds.

Tay, of course, isn’t the only Twitter user asking for free rides in compensation. He just happened be a celebrity turned rabbit caught in the headlights, since smrtsg calling any ordinary Twitter user a cheapstake wouldn’t have the same impact and snappy boldness as putting a Mediacorp actor in a difficult situation. In fact, a day of free rides was actually given by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, according to a Today letter writer on Dec 30, 2011 (When trains stop, have a backup). But that’s Massachusetts, and Singapore is not a place where you can get away with the ideal compensation without ‘cheapskate’ people falling off overloaded platforms in their haste for a free ride. I  mean, this is a country where people will queue for hours at a closing down book sale when they haven’t flipped a page in their life, not to mention a free trip, even if it’s from Orchard to Somerset. I personally wouldn’t take any offence to being called ‘cheapskate’, a term often used in jest rather than a straight insult. Perhaps what Tay needs is not a mastery of Stanislavski, but something far commonplace and even helpful for his acting: A sense of humour (even though he would like to think one exists).

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, 2012, Bloggers, Local actors, Money, MRT | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Seng Han Thong’s nightmare before Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘MP Seng not racist, says Shanmugam’, 25 Dec 2011, article by Teo Wan Gek, Sunday Times

…During a Channel NewsAsia programme Blog TV, which aired on Monday, Mr Seng made a comment which some found to be racist. He was asked about the lack of communication with passengers during the evening peak-hour breakdown of MRT trains last Thursday.

In his response, he misquoted an SMRT officer, who had earlier said: ‘Our staff at the stations and in the trains may not be making sufficient announcements and also good enough announcements. And that’s because our staff of different races, it could be Malay, Chinese, or Indians or any other race, they sometimes find it difficult to speak in English.’

But Mr Seng, when rebutting the officer’s comments, mentioned only Malay and Indian train drivers. He later clarified that he misheard the SMRT officer’s remarks, which he had heard over radio while driving.

…Mr Seng has since apologised for his remarks.

It’s Christmas Day, and instead of government officials sending well wishes or attending to holiday ‘ponding’, they’re spending time on damage control over an MP’s blooper, or Freudian slip, whatever critics want to call it. A driver who’s unable to calm passengers in the midst of an emergency breakdown is a victim of inadequate training, drills and SOPs. As an organisation with a rigid mastery over templates, surely there should be some standard announcements in place to aid anxious train drivers during disruptions.  This is all just one finger-pointing and tactless blame-shifting after another between various MPs, an SMRT vice president named Goh Chee Kong, and train drivers . If this incident and Desmond Choo’s backfired sexist anecdote tells us anything, it’s that politicians need to stop paraphrasing totally, or learn how to use the disclaimer ‘I quote’ or read excerpts out loud from pieces of paper instead.

In Seng’s defence, he seems to suggest that ‘broken English’ is OK when desperate times call for it, which runs counter to the efforts of our Speak Good English campaign, that lapsing into sub-par English is our ‘default’ setting in stressful situations, while putting on Good English politeness for mundane things such as telling someone that you need to ‘excuse yourself’ for the washroom is expected of us.  In fact, broken English/Singlish, by doing away with time-wasting grammatical formalities, would be ideal in a situation where every second counts and sounding professional should be the least of your worries. The problem is speaking English of any sort, whether broken or of the pristine BBC standard, isn’t very useful when one considers elderly passengers who would be more prone to fainting spells or injuries in the event of a disruption, in which you would have to depend on good Samaritans to do the necessary translation, provided of course that the driver is relaying the right instructions, and that passengers are not busy smashing windows for air in panic. You can bet SMRT will not be happily celebrating their annual Xmas dinner, despite earning the title of the year’s biggest turkey. Even if there was some form of celebration, you can bet no one wants to be caught pants down being treated like a pharaoh like CEO Saw Phaik Hwa in a previous DnD. You probably wouldn’t see the Dim Sum Dollies providing the night’s entertainment as well.

Seng Han Thong’s faux pas is mild compared to the remark on Indians by ex-MP and soon to be convict (twice) Choo Wee Khiang, whose atrocious joke on skin colour qualifies as true racism.  But being labelled a racist and trolled online isn’t the worst that this man has suffered. In Jan 2009, MP Seng was literally FLAMED by an assailant whilst attending a community event as Yio Chu Kang GRC MP. He was inflicted with burns on 15% of his body and his attacker was determined to be a 70 year old retired taxi driver who was subsequently admitted to IMH. Even then, not everyone was sympathetic, with some forum users adopting a ‘let this be a lesson to MPs for bullying the elderly‘ tone, adding ‘fuel to the fire’. The MP torcher was even lauded as a ‘courageous hero’ by others.

It appears that MP Seng has a history of drawing the ire of crazy old taxi drivers. Earlier in July 2006, he was punched in the face, again by a 70-plus former cab driver during a Meet the People session. The attacker was reportedly unhappy that his contract was terminated by ComfortDelgro and demanded an answer from his MP. Despite being boxed in the face and suffering the trauma of being burnt alive, this man continues to serve, though he  might be wearing asbestos underwear wherever he goes and have a phobia of blowing birthday candles for the rest of his life.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, Corporations, Customer service, MRT, Politicians, Public holidays, Racism, Singlish/Broken english, Taxi drivers, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

One man’s breakdown is another’s income opportunity

Posted on December 16, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘SMRT says sorry for its message to cabbies’, 16 Dec 2011, article by Daryl Chin, ST

SMRT has apologised for a message it broadcast to its fleet of taxis yesterday amid the chaos on the subway system. The message, which flashed on its drivers’ screens at about 8pm, read: ‘Income opportunity. Dear partners, there is a breakdown in our MRT train services from Bishan MRT to Marina Bay MRT stretch of stations.’

A photo of the screen – presumably taken by a passenger – soon appeared on social networking site Twitter and spread online, drawing sharp criticism.

‘Bad enough they are raising taxi fares, now they want to cash in on an event that is their fault to begin with,’ said sales assistant Candice Tan, 24, one of the many who tweeted about it.

Attempts to contact the photographer were unsuccessful. The message, presumably sent by SMRT call centrestaff, would have reached all 3,100 taxis in its fleet. An SMRT spokesman said last night: ‘We are sorry for the oversight. Our staff were using a template message, and we have since corrected it.’

Some More Revenue, Taxis!

The second breakdown in a week came after a Circle Line delay the day before. News of the trauma of passengers stuck in tunnels went live before SMRT could even recover from the backlash of its ‘official statement’ fiasco yesterday. Train windows were smashed out of desperation, passengers plunged into darkness and sent on a pitch-black tunnel march between City Hall and Dhoby Ghaut, images which anyone who’s seen the 90′s Sylvester Stallone disaster movie Daylight would find hauntingly familiar. I exaggerated in a previous post that SMRT was keeping silent because of zombie carnage in the train and on platforms, and looking at the state of chaos and the contorted faces of victims in agony, it appears that I wasn’t too far off the mark.

SMRT: Tunnel vision

Seems like SMRT is running out of ‘I’m sorry’ templates too. Here it’s ‘We are sorry for the oversight‘, last night it was:

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused…Preliminary investigation shows that around 40m of the power rail had been damaged between the City Hall and Dhoby Ghaut stations.

Inconvenience, of course, is a gross understatement, especially if you have passengers gasping for air, resorting to sacrificing fire extinguishers to smash windows to stay alive. One can only guess at the kind of mixed feelings that cabbies would have capitalising on stranded, desperate commuters only too eager to head home after a hard day’s work, although the cruel coincidence of the two incendiary events (MRT breakdown, taxi fare hike) reeks of a backdoor cost-recovery conspiracy on the part of SMRT, which not only has to deal with ticket refunds and whatever damages sustained because of angry, oxygen-deprived mobs, but foreigners sueing them for negligence after having their legs pulverised by trains. Or perhaps so much attention was given to ‘security breaches’ that there were simply not enough people to inspect cables every once in a while. Give me a graffitti-strewn train that gets me to work and home on the dot rather than a squeaky clean one that disgorges passengers into tunnels smack  in the middle of nowhere.

SMRT isn’t the only body exploiting the misfortune of others. Just after the Japanese tsunami in March this year, Mediacorp sent out an email soliciting for advertisers who might be interested in ‘breaking news’ coverage, each 30-second commercial costing $5000. Edwin Koh, Senior Vice President, stepped up to ‘apologise unreservedly if we had been seen to be insensitive to the gravity of the situation’. Note that it could have been either Mediacorp or SMRT who wanted to hush up DJ Hossan Leong for tweeting about the Circle Line fault yesterday as well. But it’s only the amoral nature of business after all, and corporations like these two have been ‘cashing’ in way before the advent of social media, whether we like it or not. Pharmaceutical giants ‘cash in’ whenever there’s an outbreak of disease, weapon manufacturers in the event of war, and likewise a swarm of passengers with nowhere to go is prime catch for cabbies.  Whether you call it ‘good business’ or ‘income opportunity’, the fact of the matter, as it is everywhere else, is that there is always a market for misfortune. It’s just unfortunate that an ‘oversight’ exposed the unfeeling machine that SMRT really was all along. So much for ‘MOVING people, ENHANCING lives’ as its motto boasts, when it has done the exact opposite these past few days.

Tsunami=Income opportunity

Let’s not forget another player in the grand scheme of things; ComfortDelgro for raising fees in the first place, after which we’ve seen wave after wave of sociopathic behavior occurring, from old men vandalising taxis, to graffitti on taxi panels about how we’re like ‘donkeys’ and always ‘Pay and Pay’, and the most ‘Grand Theft Auto’ of them all, a Trans cab taxi going on a hit-and-run rampage across town. Police blamed it on DRUGS, naturally. Maybe it’s the same drug that the SMRT spokespeople have been taking these couple of days, one that depletes every ounce of empathy in your body. Then again, according to writer/film-maker/lawyer Joel Bakan, corporations  are inherently self-interested psychopaths, with one of the traits being a ‘callous unconcern for the feelings of others’. A big, fat ‘Check’.

Nobody died during the shutdown last night (though it was reported that one fainted), but if there’s anybody that should be ‘apologising unreservedly’ it should be an actual PERSON, not the epitome of insincerity  in the form of the collective ‘WE’, crafting a response with the cut-and-paste dexterity as one garbles swill from random leftovers for pigs. The only trait that separates a chief mafioso from a company head in the context of exploiting tragedies for personal profit is that the gangster never needs to apologise.  This is how conspiracy theorists would view this situation: If you’re stuck with a cure (fare hikes to alleviate cabbies’ miserable takings) which nobody wants to take, then you have to create the disease (train failures). The truth is ‘shit happens’, but adding to the stink with a ‘template oversight’ is just ‘full of it’.

We want to see a sorry face, not a sorry excuse for an answer.

Postscript: And here’s SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa’s ‘very, very sorry face’ during a press conference later in the day. Isabella Loh must be thanking the heavens she never got into a seat as hot as this.

CEOs can resign, it is whether they choose to

Filed under: Bureaucrats, Corporations, MRT, Public works, Taxi drivers, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Hossan Leong in trouble for tweeting Circle Line downtime

Posted on December 14, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Radio DJ in trouble for reporting on Circle Line breakdown’, 14 Dec 2011, article in Asiaone.com

Local radio personality Hossan Leong was reportedly censured for announcing the disruption to the Circle Line train services this morning.  The deejay was allegedly rapped because his announcement came before an official statement was released by SMRT.

He had reported on the delays based on tweets that he received. In another tweet at about 9am this morning, Hossan commented that he was now “getting into trouble” for reporting the incident on-air. Hossan revealed that he could only “talk about it if (an) official SMRT statement is given”.

It is not clear whether the warning came from MediaCorp or SMRT.

Mediacorp’s Trafficwatch hotline plays a similar role to Twitter except that listeners call in to report on road congestion or accidents rather than MRT delays.  How is information dialed in from a random listener at the wheel  more reliable, or ‘official’, than a commuter tweeting a train breakdown? Hossan wasn’t tweeting about a terrorist hijack, or people jumping in front of trains or anything that could cause unnecessary alarm, yet the way a simple well-meaning alert was handled here comes across as a clumsy, conspiratorial , cahoots-y cover-up by both Mediacorp and SMRT as if it wasn’t a signalling roblem that stalled the trains, but a rampant zombie infestation instead. Perhaps they needed time to double-confirm?

The official word from Channel News Asia was ‘communication network problem’. A few months earlier in September it was ‘leaks and a damaged cable’. The responsible authorities seem preoccupied with figuring out WHY the train was stalled rather than giving passengers an early heads-up. Whether it was an explosion, a derailing or someone jumping on the tracks, people still need to get to work. Announce, divert, THEN deliver your official statement.  It’s like the police/military refraining from telling people to stay at home and lock their doors if a dark menacing cloud with crackling green lightning suddenly occupied half the sky, waiting for the meterologists to give an official diagnosis, by which time our streets would have been already littered with crisp, smoldering human remains. Some of us suffer a worse fate if we’re ever late for meetings. A hundred heads may roll out of a single delay but the one head that matters somehow remains in place.

I experienced first-hand the morning delay myself at Marymount station, where the staff were all at sea trying to placate a frustrated crowd demanding speedy answers. A bewildered auntie exclaimed ‘Train SPOILT ah’, Cisco auxillary police officers had to take up temporary SMRT staff roles to guide passengers, and not a single soul thought of setting up a signboard to tell us what’s happening. I would be surprised if the control station was even equipped with a permanent marker. Hossan was spot on, the train was ‘down’, even if the term SMRT would prefer to use is ‘delay’, but Marymount was in chaos as early as 8 am and services resumed only 3 hours later. This was no delay; it was a breakdown, a stupefying system failure that befits the name of a network  and its authority that persist in running RINGS around commuters with one useless apology after another.

As easy as it is to blame the transport authorities for not meeting even the most basic requirements of public commute, this mini-crisis also brought out both the best and worst in Singaporeans. I saw ordinary individuals  taking leadership to keep everyone’s heads together, strangers diverting others away from the station and towards the right shuttle buses in the absence of any signs. I witnessed people who otherwise wouldn’t even look at each other engaging fervently in complaints, bonding through anger and disappointment in an organisation  they are beginning to lose faith in, topics ranging from regretting their voting choice in the past elections to the recent taxi fare hikes. You’re more likely to talk to a fellow Singaporean stranger when something goes horribly wrong than if he were just next to you at the National Day Parade.

I was late, but thankful that I wasn’t trampled in a riot, because Singaporeans as a pragmatic lot would rather work towards a contingency plan than harp on something that can’t be resolved with complaints alone. Most commuters at Marymount took the incident lightly, queuing up patiently outside the bus bridging services despite being late for work, messaging their bosses to explain, friends to complain, or sending tweets to radio personalities like Hossan Leong hoping they could put the SMRT whack-jobs to shame. If anything, SMRT should be grateful that we are a cooperative lot, though that is often mistaken for ‘powerless’. Transport Minister Lui, Where the Tuck are Yew?

Filed under: 2011, Bureaucrats, Local radio DJs, MRT | Tagged: , , | 6 Comments »

Jack Neo thinks an MRT train on fire is beautiful

Posted on September 10, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Jack Neo criticised for comments made on blog’, 9 Sept 2011, article in asiaone.com

Actor-director Jack Neo has once again come under fire, this time, for comments made on his blog regarding the latest vandalism case at Singapore Mass Rapid Transit’s (SMRT) Bishan depot.

…Members of the public had called the news hotline to complain about Neo’s ”offensive” post which they felt was in poor-taste. In his approximately 1,200-word post, Neo described what could happen if the vandal had managed to hide an explosive in one of the carriages. He expressed in Chinese how “beautiful” the image of a train on fire would be, “barbecueing” its passengers as it hurtles along.

Readers of the Chinese daily responded angrily to the comment, saying that if that were to happen, it would be a tragedy. They also questioned how he could treat the subject so lightly. He goes on to say the incident must be “hard on SMRT’s chief executive officer who had to shoulder all the blame”, and the “rational public” should sympathise with her.

Neo continued, “The CEO has so many things on her plate, and she needs to handle ‘strange’ incidents as well. Like when someone falls on the tracks, or if someone gets caught in between the train doors. Or, if someone chooses to jump on to the tracks to end his life; this happened once before and the family received alot of money…”

To that, a reader said that “as the CEO of the company, of course she (Ms Saw Phaik Hwa) would have to apologise, why should we take pity on her?”

As for the suicide cases, Neo was criticised for being “insensitive” by bringing up the amount donated to the family of the deceased. Said Mr Tan, 50, a taxi driver: “Was he drunk? What he said was very irresponsible.”

The Case of the Unnecessary Apostrophe

Having been in hiding for too long and away from directorial work, it was only natural for Jack Neo to overdramatise a blog post probably intended to be satirical in nature than anything else.  As a Cultural Medallion winner however, he may have crossed the line with the bad timing and jibes at a certain amputated Thai teen’s misadventure on the MRT tracks in view of the flurry of national sympathy following the incident.  Perhaps Jack was obsessing over a comeback plot in mind when he was writing this, his first big budget action thriller and a long awaited return to film making, though any attempt at high octane espionage and suspense would be let down by Jack’s tendency to ruin his movies with ridiculous titles. ‘Where got BOMB?’ and ‘I Not Terrorist’ come to mind. Hit the road, Jack, you’re better off behind a camera than posing as a ‘keyboard warrior’.

If you stop to think about it, it wouldn’t make sense for a terrorist to spray paint an MRT train before proceeding to load it with explosives. Firstly, the anti-establishment mischief of the modern graffiti movement is incompatible with the murderous evil-doing of terrorists.  And it would be dumb to mark a rigged MRT train with graffiti to alert authorities to it in the first place. But here’s a brief but confused history of graffiti in Singapore, from its humble beginnings as plain naughtiness to government endorsed prank to terrorist calling card:

Sometime from the mid 70′s to early 80′s, graffiti was part of a vandal complex of what most would deem flagrant misbehaviour. It wasn’t a global movement or recognised as art in any form, and was  used by naughty kids rather than bohemians with tattoos and cool girlfriends. HDB lifts and void deck walls bore the brunt of the mischief, where instead of anarchic protests or heavy metal logos you have the likes of Carpenter song titles instead.

Vandals listen to the Carpenters

IN 1989, a rocky embankment on the Marina Promenade was vandalised with love messages by amorous vandals. These etchings of passion and rejection, rather than the elaborate, decorative fonts we see today, are now the lingua franca of Facebookers and bloggers. Which is good news for cleaners; love-hate graffiti on the back of bus seats, even sexual come-ons on toilet walls, have declined considerably in recent memory.

Graffiti became a hot-button issue that strained international ties with the Michael Fay incident in 1994. It also made the nation famous for all the wrong reasons, with the rotan becoming a symbol of our ‘barbaric’ justice system. However, it would soon turn out that it’s not just celebrities like Jack Neo who were starting to ‘take graffiti lightly’. In 2004, Today newspaper took it upon themselves to digitally ‘vandalise’ a billboard in front of the National Museum as part of an April Fool’s Joke with the words ‘Casino coming here’. This was when graffiti was catching on as something ‘funky’ and ‘hip’, though the public apparently didn’t get it (and still doesn’t get it till this day). They probably thought Michael Fay was back in town up to no good.

Where is Banksy when you need him

It’s ironic that also around the mid 2000s, graffiti was used as an intimidation tool by loansharks, with ‘O$P$’ becoming a uniquely Singaporean shorthand symbol for extortion. Until recent years, loansharks merely splashed paint or planted the proverbial pig’s head at one’s doorstep. The O$P$ meme turned out to be a quick, effective means of delivering a threat when erstwhile one had to write ‘So-and-so owes us money. Pay now or suffer!’. It turned from a playful fad to a hounding public threat.

Gra$$iti

In 2009, a vandal later diagnosed as schizophrenic scribbled  ‘Hi, Harry lee I Love you’ on  an entrance wall outside Parliament House. Though outwardly hilarious it could also have been interpreted as a form of lowest-denominator political sarcasm.  Or it could have just have been a smitten member of the PA professing his love for the man-god. If not for the quality and context of this misdemeanour, it would have otherwise been a audacious intrusion into the political sphere, a civil disobedience of Berlin Wall proportions.

Awww......

Just to trivialise graffiti further, Singpost created a public furore by launching a series of mailbox ‘vandalism’ as part of a ‘viral marketing’ campaign in conjunction with the YOG in 2010, to spark greater awareness of ‘creativity and self-expression’ in the spirit of the Games. Commissioned graffiti as being ‘out of the box’ and ‘innovative’ is a glaring contradiction to what our penal system spells out about defacing public property, a case of mixed signals  relayed by the Government on whether graffiti is ‘hipster art’ or a ‘punishable crime’. Alas, in the same year, Swiss Oliver Fricker set the record straight by exposing the SMRT security system and spraying ‘Mckoy Banos’ on a docked train, a piece of work which the current ‘Jet Setter’s’ graffiti spree seemed to borrow heavily from. As much as grafitti fans would laud the audacity and talent of these offenders, it didn’t stop graffiti from henceforth being linked to acts of terror, when the Fricker stunt was really a slap in the face of the authorities for initially making a mockery of graffiti art while trying to act cool. Not a squeak from the authorities about Fricker’s work being ‘out of the box’ though, and everyone will agree that the defaced MRT looks way better than an amateurishly ‘defaced’ mailbox below, which resembles the slipshod work of loansharks rather than paid artists. Whether it’s a psychotic ode to the MM, street art, a marketing gimmick or a political statement, graffiti is exhibitionism par excellence, and thrives only because people take notice of it.

My kid could paint this

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 2010, 2011, Art, Bloggers, Campaigns/Elections, Environment, HDB, Justice system/Lawsuits, Kids, Local actors, MRT, Public works | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

No MRT stations named after Indians

Posted on August 6, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ”Is there an MRT station named after a prominent Indian Singaporean?’, 5 Aug 2011, ST Forum

(MR DANNY CHUE):…Is there an MRT station here named after a prominent Indian Singaporean? At the start of the Japanese Occupation, Lim Boon Keng represented the Chinese community at the Syonan Memorial and Srish Chandra Goho, better known as S.C. Goho, represented the Indian community in Singapore in a ceremony in which all four main communities were represented. A road and an MRT station have been named after Lim, but none after Goho, which is a glaring omission. As well as a community leader as the president of the Singapore Indian Association, and a lawyer, Goho was an independent candidate who became one of the first of six elected legislative councillors in Singapore. He was also the legal adviser to the Singapore Traction Company’s Employees Union and had fought for the interests of bus employees. Perhaps a bus interchange should also be named after him.

There’s a Boon Keng and a Tan Kah Kee station, and others that sound like the names of prominent Chinese (Yio Chu Kang, Choa Chu Kang, Yew Tee), but no, there aren’t any MRT stations named after famous Indians. There are, however, references to Indians, like Dhoby Ghaut (washing place in Hindi) and, of course, Little India. Our Malay MRT stations include the two Bukits (Batok and Gombak), Tanjong Pagar (cape of stakes) and Telok Blangah (cooking pot bay), all names to remind us of our humble, rural origins or hilly places,  but not dignitaries of the respective races. When it comes to public buildings, although there’s the S Rajaratnam School of International studies at NTU, this is but one Indian- named building among a smattering of many others named after famous Chinese, public hospitals especially (Tan Tock Seng, Khoo Teck Puat, Ng Teng Fong).

S C Goho isn’t exactly a household name, but other than his involvement in politics and buses, he was somewhat of a saviour of fellow Indians during the War, setting up the Indian Passive Defence which put 25,000 Indians under its care (Mr S C Goho dies in Calcutta, 26 July 1948, ST). According to the complainant,  he doesn’t even have a road named after him, not to mention a bus interchange, the latter a consolation prize compared to having his heroic contributions to the nation commemorated in the form of an MRT station. Bus depots are constantly shifting locations, and are fast disappearing as distinct entities, being incorporated gradually into mega malls or engulfed by MRT stations themselves, which makes the writer’s suggestion as useful as naming this man after the largest cloud in the sky.

Even Indian poet and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Dr Rabindranath Tagore has a package of roads named after him: ‘Tagore Lane, Drive, Road and Industrial Avenue’, when he was really more of a global celebrity who popped by for a visit in the 1930s rather than a pioneer who got his hands dirty for Singapore, as was what I initially thought (Glimpses of Tagore’s paintings, 30 March 1984, ST). It’s like the modern equivalent of naming our roads after the Dalai Lama. As a lawyer it would probably make sense to name S C Goho after a Law school, instead of a amenity most commuters associate with long queues, noxious fumes, noisy chugging engines, blaring horns, smelly staff canteens and dustbins overflowing with cigarette butts. But first, to the history textbooks.

Filed under: 1940s, 1980s, 2011, MRT, Names, Public works, SBS Buses | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Woodleigh in Mandarin sounds like Woodlands

Posted on July 3, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Cut loud, unnecessary train messages’, 3 July 2011, Your Letters, Sunday Times

(Manmohan Singh): …Ever since the North East Line came into operation, there has been a constant increase in the number of announcements…with only a few seconds of peace. There is also no standard volume and sometimes, the volume is really loud.

Some announcements are also unnecessary. For example, is it necessary to announce that the elderly should take the lift – when it is natural for them to do so? As for the announcement asking the public to look out for ‘suspicious-looking’ people, the ordinary commuter is not trained to do such detection. For me, any person who carries a bag is ‘suspicious’.

Finally, why does SBS Transit announce the names of train stations in two languages? This is confusing, as the announcement for Woodleigh in Mandarin sounds like ‘Woodlands’, Farrer Park is pronounced as ‘Falla Fu Yuen’ – a name that stumps even taxi drivers.

Farrer Park is actually 花拉公园, ‘Hua La Gong Yuan’, which means either Mr Singh got it wrong, or his ears have already been damaged by shrill as hell MRT announcements. Perhaps you can’t blame the writer for misinterpretation,  but surely the forum editor should have done his homework before allowing this to print. As for ‘unnecessary’ lift announcements, these may actually be useful not just to our forgetful elderly population, but senior travellers from overseas as well. The authorities can’t expect passengers to sniff out suicide bombers, but you also can’t expect the ‘trained’ police to be everywhere all the time targeting people carrying bags ‘suspiciously’. Civilian vigilance is a standard preventive tool in counterterrorism, even though we  tend to rely on movie stereotypes most of the time. Just because the writer has poor intuition when it comes to sensing danger doesn’t mean that other commuters should just kick back and ignore the crazy person chanting nervously with a backpack under his seat.

His concern with confusing Chinese names seems to be a valid one, though the reason why ‘sound-a-like’ names are preferred at the expense of nonsense creations like Somerset (索美塞, literally Rope Beauty Stuffing) is to minimise such confusion in the first place. Woodleigh reads as 兀里 (Wu Li), while Woodlands is 兀兰 (Wu Lan), a slight difference but still discernible, yet there remains inconsistency in Chinese naming, with stations like City Hall (政府大厦, Zheng Fu Da Sha) and Admiralty (海军部, Hai Jun Bu) sounding totally different in Mandarin. Perhaps SMRT should really turn the volume down, before more hearing damage occurs and people start mistaking Orchard (乌节, Wu Jie) for Woodleigh too, or Bras Basah (百胜, Bai Sheng) for  Bishan.

Filed under: 2011, MRT, Names, Noise | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

SMRT’s $5000 compensation is tragic

Posted on June 18, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Unfair’, 16 June 2011, ST Forum,  ‘Thai teen’s family sues SMRT for $3.4m’, article by Poon Chian Hui in ST, 18 June 2011.

MR DAVID CHOO: ‘The accident in which Thai teenager Peneakchanasak Nitcharee lost both her legs was tragic. What is equally tragic is SMRT’s meagre offer of $5,000 in compensation when this young girl’s family is faced with medical and rehabilitation costs north of $200,000. In contrast, it is heartening to see ordinary Singaporeans rallying around Nitcharee’s family with donations and support. It is time SMRT did the same.’

(ST)…THE family of the Thai teenager who lost both legs following a horrific accident at the Ang Mo Kio MRT station in April is suing SMRT for $3.4 million. The writ filed in the High Court here was served yesterday on the transport operator, which confirmed that it had received it.

…Although the sum received (from gifts and donations) has crossed the $400,000 mark, it is but a small proportion of her medical bills, spurring the family to take legal action.

Mummy's probably on the phone with a lawyer

This is indeed an awkward juxtaposition of events. Singaporeans rallied around the victim, donating a $250,000 check to cover her medical fees, probably assuming that the $5000 pittance that SMRT’s offering isn’t enough. The  5000 figure happens to be in line with our Government’s tendency to donate sums of money with the number 5 in it, the last donation, which left Singaporeans similarly unimpressed, was towards the victims of the Japanese tsunami. But that’s another story.

What happened to Nitcharee is no doubt tragic, and her will to survive and make light of a horrific situation is worth emulating. But we don’t hear as much of our locals making such donations to the numerous Singaporeans maimed or killed by trains all this while, which raises the question of what makes Nitcharee so special? Is it because she’s just a kid, was all alone in a foreign country or is this generosity triggered by the inspiring tales of her winsome, smiling fortitude in the face of tragedy? Why are we Singaporeans so nice to foreign students but turn a blind eye to our own kind?

We could have left it at that, until this twist in the tale with Nitcharee’s family coming back with a vengeance, undermining everything that Nitcharee represents (overcoming crises and getting on with life), all the loving memories she has of Singapore and all the goodwill expressed by her sympathisers. But how responsible should SMRT be, really, for someone inexplicably falling onto the track? The fact that this suit comes from foreigners and is scrutinised by millions of Thais further complicates the issue, as it would set a worrying precedent for compensation seekers who have been in some way or other incapacitated by an oncoming MRT train, whether it’s being amputated or getting a nasty bruise from the doors clamping the arm when one’s rushing to board. SBS has in fact been successfully sued for causing grievous hurt to one of the infamous complaining Khek sisters for an unnecessary emergency brake, ironically an action, if successful, that could have saved SMRT all this trouble in the first place. If the Thais win this case, instead of merely teaching SMRT a lesson on the importance of safety doors, we could also see a rise in desperate people trying their luck getting hit by a train before these doors become fully implemented.

As a commuter, I’d hate to see SMRT involved in such legal hijinks, nevermind if they could easily afford it. But losing a few million and bracing for more will only put ordinary citizens who take the train faithfully, without fooling around behind the yellow line, at a disadvantage. Now they can justify raising transport fees, or cutting back on the Downtown Line and extra trains, or spend less resources on reducing waiting times, all because these people are busy suing them on behalf of train jumpers/track stumblers. Nitcharee’s case is unfortunate, but I believe the Thai government, and especially Thai donors, should work something out on their side as well. Perhaps a Facebook page to support the funding of Nitcharee’s prosthetic legs? Either way, this is a classic study of a story of unbridled hope and altruism gone sour, and only God knows what Nitcharee’s Singaporean donors are thinking right now.

Filed under: 2011, Corporations, Fund-raising, Justice system/Lawsuits, Money, MRT | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

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