SMRT Bus Spotted Travelling Against Traffic Along Victoria Street

2019-03-02 , 2:00 am

A salmon’s life is one of the most extraordinary in the natural world. If you ever happen to be in the United Kingdom during a ‘salmon season’, you might have come across a very interesting sight.

With a burst of silver, salmon can leap up to four times their length upriver, making famous the phrase, ‘to go against the tide’.

However, doing so involves very high risk and is not often done, in all practicality.

In fact, it may even cost you your job.

Going Against The Tide

A double-decker public bus was seen going against traffic along Victoria Street on Saturday afternoon (Feb 23).

Bus driving against traffic

Update: The SMRT bus captain who turned into the wrong lane from Ophir Road onto Victoria Street on Saturday (Feb 23) has been suspended.SMRT takes a serious view of the safety of our commuters. We apologise to all affected commuters and road users who were inconvenienced that afternoon said Ms Margaret Teo, Vice President for SMRT Corporate Communications____________________________________Double-decker bus drove against traffic along Victoria Street.A double-decker public bus was seen going against traffic along Victoria Street on Saturday afternoon (Feb 23).“I was heading towards Kallang Road at about 12.12pm when the bus service 960 came from the opposite direction.”Credit: Stomp/Mangku

Posted by ROADS.sg on Wednesday, 27 February 2019

As depicted in the video, traffic in the right-most lane came to a standstill as the bus approached their vehicles.

Motorists then after started to make way for the oncoming vehicle.

While it was unclear why the bus was on the wrong side of the road, STOMP had reached out to the SMRT to comment.

And they’ve responded.

What happened

Heading towards Marina Centre Terminal, the bus captain of 960 turned into the wrong lane on Victoria Street from Ophir Road.

This happened around noon when Stomper Mangku was driving towards Kallang Road.

The footage was then shared from his car’s dashboard camera with Stomp.

According to a statement released by Ms Margaret Teo, Vice President for SMRT Corporate Communications, the bus captain had since then been suspended.

Taking the safety of their commuters as a serious priority, SMRT seeks to apologise to all the affected commuters and road users who were inconvenienced that afternoon.

Further investigations into the matter are currently ongoing.

Netizens’ Comments

In Singapore where you can rarely see any vehicles going against the traffic so blatantly…

…you know netizens are itching to jump on the bandwagon.

‘The bus driver optimistically thinks he can quickly get into the right direction asap, but the “infamous viral video” strikes again‘.

And many made comparisons with the different driving lanes from different countries, speculating the bus captain to be a foreigner.

“From what I can tell, it’s 960 that makes a right turn to Bugis after passing by Sim Lim tower and he kept right though the road is one way… Probably a China driver who is used to left hand drive so he made an immediate right turn without crossing to the other side to go Bugis.”

However, some comments were sympathetic to the bus captain, and regarded the incident as an ‘honest mistake‘.

‘The poor driver must be struggling how to get back on the correct route,’

‘He must be very worried and panic-ky at that moment. Company may sack him,’

22 November 2015

About 2 years ago, a similar incident took place, where the bus captain made a mistake, and was unsure of how to correct it.

At least 15 commuters were left stranded on an SBS Transit bus after the driver stopped near a junction to make a phone call for directions.

The incident was covered by the Straits Times here.

Ever wondered what happened if your bus captain took a wrong turn?

Now you know.

Thanks, Internet.

Turn Wrongly: Is it Common?

So, I asked a driver from my office on whether it’s common to turn into a wrong direction, thinking that it’s as rare as seeing an influencer donating all her profits to charity.

Turned out that I’m wrong because not one but two drivers said this: “Actually, quite common lah, especially on unfamiliar one-way road. But we’ll realise our mistake immediately and since we’ve just turned in, our speed is slow so vehicles around us would give way and let us to turn into the correct lane.”

Oh. Interesting.