HALLOWEEN this weekend brings on the scares but largely of the frivolous, fun and harmless type.
But I encounter real scares every day when I drive and take the slip road from Normanton Park to connect to the Ayer Rajah Expressway (AYE) towards Tuas.
Similarly, it's fright night almost every day for me when I use the slip road from the Central Expressway to access the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) at Kallang.
In both places, the heavy traffic on two merging roads means that drivers have to slow down to a crawl to make way for each other.
It gets chaotic when motorists are trying to get on to the major road, and drivers on the main road are at the same time trying to filter into a side road or exit slightly further in front.
Take the case of the bottleneck at Normanton Park in the morning.
That’s when a hefty number of vehicles on the slip road is trying to nudge their way to join the AYE traffic on the right.
But many cars on the AYE are also trying to drift to the left to navigate a slip road to Buona Vista.
This slip route is just further up from the slip road from Normanton Park.
Which means plenty of stop and start action as cars on both roads manoeuvre round each other.
It can get dangerous because even as vehicles slow down, there are also others on the outer right lanes of AYE travelling at higher speeds.
That means there is always the potential for trouble if you are not super-alert or if the driver in the right-most lanes does not give way to you as you try to filter right.
I have an idea.
Why not install lights but have them operational only during the peak hours, from, say, 7.30am to 9.30am, or 6.30pm to 8pm, depending on which time of day the jam peaks?
Sure, it will mean that drivers on AYE and PIE will not have an uninterrupted passage but, as it is, when they approach the Normanton Park or Kallang sectors, they have to slow down anyway, even stop, because of the congestion.
This solution can also be applied at other places where two streams of traffic converge.
Something has to be done because many kiasu Singaporean drivers are just not big on being courteous and giving way to others.
I know because I am often blasted by impatient drivers who sound their horns at my "audacity" to intrude into their lane, despite the early signalling of my intentions.
And it gets worse when you "take on" drivers of buses or trucks who feel humiliated if they have to give way. They will flash their headlights and actually accelerate to close any gap that opens up for you.
A traffic light will definitely be a saner and safer option - and should not cost a bomb to install.