The sheer state of the valet services in Singapore lately is absolutely terrifying. Are these companies even regulated by LTA or TP, or do they just recruit any random person who has a Class 3 license and a pulse?
Last night was the final straw. I did the responsible thing, right? Had a few drinks with the kakis, knew I shouldn’t be behind the wheel, and booked a valet to drive my own car home. You’d think paying a premium means you’re paying for safety. Instead, I get this driver who looked completely zombified. Literally within a 15-minute drive, this guy drifted out of the lane and nearly sideswiped the barrier two times. The second time, I literally had to scream at him from the passenger seat just to get him to snap out of it and pull the wheel straight.
Come on lah, I am the one who is drunk, so why the hell am I the one acting as the look-out and staying more sober and alert than the driver? It’s completely ridiculous.
This got me thinking about the whole logic of our traffic laws. If I got behind the wheel drunk, TP would rightly throw the book at me—heavy fines, immediate disqualification, and jail time. And fair enough, drink driving is stupid and dangerous. But how is the penalty or public outcry not the exact same—or worse—for these accident-causing idiots who know they are physically unfit to drive, but still choose to operate a 1.5-ton lethal weapon on the expressway?
It’s pure greed. You have these part-time valet drivers who have already worked a full 9-to-5 day shift, or worse, PHV drivers who have been grinding on Grab/Gojek for 14 hours straight until their eyes are bloodshot. They are completely running on empty, hallucinating from fatigue, all just to chase that extra midnight surcharge or valet cash.
Driving while severely sleep-deprived has been scientifically proven to impair your reflexes just as much as being over the legal alcohol limit. Yet, these guys just shrug it off, drink a can of Pokka coffee, and gamble with their passengers’ lives. If you are so tired that you cannot even keep a car in the center of the lane on the PIE, you have absolutely no business being on the road. The authorities seriously need to crack down on these valet platforms, enforce maximum driving hours, and treat extreme driver fatigue with the exact same criminal severity as a high-BAC drink driver. We are paying them to keep us safe, not to fast-track us to Mandai.