Front-Ended

Today I was involved in my first car accident in Singapore.  I wish I can tell you a funny story about driving on the wrong side of the road or some silly unorthodox signage that I could not understand, but there is nothing uniquely cultural about this incident.  I was stopped in the middle of a parking lot waiting patiently for the car in front of me to settle into a space so I can get into another of my own, when the driver decided to drive back directly into my front bumper.  I am not sure if this was a failure to listen to the many beeps and blips that are coming out of the rear-bumper sensors that I see on every car here, or overconfidence by the driver, or negligent and purposeful vandalism... All I can say is that when I got out of my car to get the details of the other driver, I got accosted by her boyfriend/husband/brother and blamed for not honking my horn before I got hit by them...


Later in the day I went to the rental company's office to file my claim report, and the rental office was kind enough to offer the driver to settle by cash for a meager sum - it was fairly minor damage all-told.  This crazed maniac asked to speak with me while on the phone with the agent and tried to convince me to take some of the responsibility for the damage.  Why?  Because of my negligence in honking in a timely manner.  Maybe their bumper sensors don't work after all and they expect other stationary objects on the road to alarm them instead.  I politely declined to take any responsibility, and when that didn't work I did it less politely... 


The next twist in this story is that I was asked to collect the settlement payment from this person on behalf of my rental company, so I arranged to meet her after work - we both seem to occupy a desk in the same building.  It turns out she works at Bloomberg - we sort of guessed because the collision happened at 8am, when all Bloomberg employees here have to report in.  She was quite amicable by this point.  I got my cash and we parted our ways.  Other than this, and some wrong turns, driving here has been pretty straightforward.  Only thing to watch out for is that if you end up taking too many wrong turns you might find yourself crossing the border to Malaysia by mistake...