Reflection on the current situation

Massive jams at Woodlands and, Tuas

Diana Othman

The Straight Times

Thursday, March 6 2008

A criminal that have escape from a detention centre is currently still at large and because the police wanted to have him arrested as soon as possible. So they have to check through every single car, lorries and other form of transportations to prevent him to slipping through to the nearby countries which result causing heavy jams at the checkpoints. The massive jam at woodlands causes many delivery men to be trapped within the jams. All these deliverymen are greatly affected because some of them earned the income by the number of times they send the goods to a certain destination. But the jams at the checkpoint cause them to reduce the amount of trips they could make a day. This traffic jams will also greatly affect the people in Singapore as the daily products which come straight from Malaysia such as vegetables, fruits and many more are delayed. But when the daily products reach the market, it will not be fresh anymore because it was on the truck for a period of time. The price for these products also will increase because many people do not want to deliver any goods to Singapore as they will have to join the long queue of trucks. This will affect us greatly as many people will want to have the daily product. As such many people are greatly affected by this massive jam especially the deliverymen. People that come from Johor are affected because they could not reach their working place on time and at night; they will have to join the long queues of cars that wanted to enter to Malaysia and returned home. A man said that he has been in the jam for nineteen hours and he did not bathe, sleep and eaten properly for two days. The coming Saturday is the beginning of the march holidays for students. Many people will want to bring their children to Malaysia for a short holiday but because of the massive jams at the checkpoints, many parents will reconsider whether they should join the queue and proceed with their holiday’s plans or to cancel the trip due to the jams. But the traffic that is coming into Singapore is expected to start on March fifteen and sixteen because the March holidays are coming to an end and the following week, schools will resume. These massive jams have brought inconvenience to many people in Singapore. I think that the police should set up more check point to reduce length of the traffic jams and allowing the people to return to work and to go home.