Latest TODAY column: The New Singapore Criminal
Excerpt:
THERE is a new Bill being looked at that proposes jailing commuters who cheat on their bus and taxi fares. Yes, if this bill passes, you could see the birth of a new Criminal Mastermind: The Bus Fare Cheat.
(Insert ominous "dang dang dang" music here.)
My immediate reaction to this announcement was: You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
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Full column:
The New Singapore Criminal
There is a new proposed bill being looked at that could jail commuters who cheat on their bus and taxi fares. Yes, if this bill passes, you could see the birth of a new Criminal Mastermind: The Bus Fare Cheat.
(insert ominous "dang dang dang" music here)
My immediate reaction to this announcement was: You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
Don't get me wrong. I am not against punishing fare cheats. Cheating on your fares is wrong. It hurts the multi-million dollar profits of our public transport companies and it makes them cry.
But jail?
I think this is ridiculous. Jail is too good for these evil fare cheats. I suggest making the law tougher. Don't just jail these fare cheats costing the public transport companies an estimated $9 million of lost revenue a year. No, jail them and FLOG them! Publicly!
In fact, I suggest even making it an act of Sedition!
I think we should also give the law an easy to remember name. Something that will help the public remember how seriously the authorities view fare cheating. Instead of calling it something long and complicated like "Act of Parliament: The Public Transport Council Act", I suggest calling the law... Ez-Jail™.
Doesn't that just roll off the tongue? Say it with me: Ez-Jail™.
I can imagine the first trial in court: "In mitigation, the accused said he was merely trying to get off at Buangkok, but couldn't."
I remember when ez-link was launched, we were told it was going to solve the problem of fare cheats. The expensive $300 million dollar system was meant to fight cheats who would pay the same minimum 80 cents fare regardless of how far they traveled.
Looks like the fare cheats figured out how to cheat with this $300 million system too, by tapping their cards earlier than their stops.
Hey, please don't be too harsh on the system. I believe the losses from fare cheats under the old system was more than $10 million a year. The losses from fare cheats under the ez-link system is estimated to be $9 million a year.
So, there WAS an improvement! From double digit million to single digit million losses! All we need now is a law that will bring it down even further.
Personally, I can think we can do more to prevent people from cheating.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, mr brown's patent pending anti-fare-cheating system: ez-brain-link!
This works by implanting the commuter with a biochip to store the same information that is currently stored in the current ez-link card. This is done via a painful (but one-off only, don't worry) process that embeds the chip into your cerebral cortex without anesthesia.
The cerebral cortex is the scientific term that brain surgeons use, but in layman's terms, it means "some part of your brain".
The reason we cannot use anesthesia when we embed the chip into your brain is because we need you to remember how painful it was to use the system.
Not unlike the first time you went to the ez-link counter to buy a new ez-link card, and you paid $15 for it, only to discover that there is only a $7 value in it.
With the biochip embedded (I am thinking of calling the chip Big Brudder), every time you get up a bus, you tap your head on the reader, and it will deduct the full fare from your brain, then when you get off the bus, you tap your head again at the exit reader and they will refund you the balance after calculating the correct fare. Just like now, with the ez-link card.
Any attempt to cheat, like tapping your head on the exit reader way before you really get off, will be detected by the sensor systems. It will then announce on the speaker system, "Mr Loo Ai Cheet, you have tapped your head to exit and you have not gotten off the bus. You have 5 seconds to do so before extreme measures are taken... 5-4-3-2-1..."
If you still have not gotten off by then, the system will send a mild electric shock through your body via your brain's Big Brudder chip as a penalty. Do not worry, the electric shock will not kill you (we only reserve this for repeat offenders). You may foam in the mouth and lose control over your bodily functions, and you may not be able to feel the left side of your face for a few days, but the effect will wear off.
When this happens enough times, I believe we will see a drop in fare cheating.
I plan to introduce this system to deal with another group of criminals — contractors who quote $30 a rivet and recommend changing all your window grills when all you want is to comply with the HDB September rivet deadline.
mr brown is the accidental author of a popular website that has been documenting the dysfunctional side of Singapore life since 1997. He thinks the current tedious refund process for overcharged commuters is even more criminal.
