When I first moved here I was really surprised the first time I found an illegal CD shop in a shopping mall operating like any other business and filled with customers. I could not understand how this could happen? Over time I found many more such shops open in other malls or shopping centers, once while in Simm Lim there was a guy selling X-rated DVD along the pathway, DVD’s could also be found in the Roswell area of little India and Geylang both in the day or night, they were not had to find by any means. I had to ask myself how can this be done and where are the police?
Drivers park their cars where it is clearly marked “NO Parking” and nothing is done or at least that I have seem. I have only seen 1 car get a packing ticket at night but you will see this all over the country by eat places, housing areas, shopping malls, MRT stations and just about every place you think of. Where I live the police post is right next to the shopping mall and even there and any time of the day you will find parked illegally and yet I have never seen the police enforcing the rules. When I say the police I am also including the parking people, don’t know the official name of the organization that runs the meters maids but I think they only work Monday to Friday in selected areas.
Dose tradition over rule the law?
August is the Ghost month so people do burning to keep the ghost away and for a better year 
to come by burning fake money. The problem comes when the burning is done on the ground, isn’t that a form of littering since sometime the money will not full burn and the joy sticks are left stuck in the ground not to mention all the ashes? Another item is the small shrines you find everywhere around the country to people that have passed away. You will see them along the streets or by a tree some where. So what is done about these? Can I drop a cigarette and tell the environmental agency that is my tradition and get a way with it, I think not.
Vehicles
Singapore had a mandatory seat beat law but you know what see very little enforcement done to enforce it. I see many cars with 6, 7 or even 8 people in with if there are small kids that can sit on a persons lap and no one has seat belt on. I guess the driver is not too afraid to get a ticket! And if the law is in place how can you justify people riding the back of trucks where there are just not proper seats let along seat belts and if involved in an accident would cause many people to be hurt if not killed since some vehicles can carry up to 45 people in the back.
Now get this, vehicles entering Singapore from Malaysia are not required to obey the seat belt law! WTF?
Parking in the street, by many of your coffee shops people will park along the curd while they grab a bit it eat. Now these are not parking spaces by any means so the driver will turn on their flasher and walk inside. This blocks the on coming traffic since the lane is not usable anymore. Yet again I see nothing done to stop this!
Motorcycles both ride and park on the sidewalks.
Update - 20 Aug 2008 - Last night I went to the coffee shop to get dinner and there was a funeral going on between 2 of the block so cars of the guest were parked all over the 2 lain access road blocking 1 lain completely for about 70 meters. Well on my way back about 15 minutes later there they were the Meter Maids ticketing all the cars on the road, this was at 8:30pm. So I stand corrected on the issue of nothing being done after 5pm by the traffic department, I was wrong! I notice sometimes when i write something I see then a few days later I see it happening and have to correct my statements, which I don’t mind doing, if I am wrong I will fess up to it!
Double Standard, I hope not!
When a school bus was involved in an accident and several children were the public called for all busses to have seat belts installed so now all new school busses will have seat belts. My question is this, if this had been a truck with foreign workers in it would there be a call for no more riding in the back of trucks or is there a double standards between the live of a Singaporean and foreigner.
Littering
If you go around any of the hostels where the foreign workers live in the early morning you will see bottle and trash everywhere. Is no one patrolling these areas and enforcing the laws or may this group only works during the day time also?
WTF
I personally saw a lady get question by the police who refused to give over her Identification card to them so they know how she was and where she lived. She was banned from entering the company where she was being question but was released! So what do you put on the police report? “ I question some lady, I don’t who, I don’t know where she lives but her age is – I guess about 30+ maybe older or younger, Citizen of – she told me this place!”
Simple stuff
You can ride the MRT, buses and see people disobeying the simple rules like No eating or drinking, smoking outside if the authorized areas at coffee shops and very little of anything ever happens.
The abuse of maids and kinds of punishments imposed by the employer for a long time was noting more then a slap on the wrist while if the same thing had been done to a citizen I am sure the punishment given would have been much stiffer.
Street side gambling table game are played opening at any time of the day.
Renting out of flats, The Housing Development Board (HDB) will let you rent out your flat with restrictions on the number of people that can live in the flat, yet over and over again I hear on the news about some that has broken this rule. One person had over 40 foreign workers living in their flat. I guess no spots checks on done on this rule to check for violations. The other people in the block reported all the workers in the area which lead to the discovery.
In my 8 years of living in Singapore I have come to find that Singapore is not a “FINE City” like the slogan says but is really pretty lax in my standards of understanding the law. When I hear about the fine or punishment handed out for some offences I am surprised again at how low it is and can understand why there is little discouragement not to recommit the offence when you think about the profit made in some cases.
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Singapore is country where the person, the average citizen enforces the law in many case and then the police are called. Between the number of security officer and good Samaritans these are one catching your daily small time criminals. While you will see the police driving around you get the feeling they are not really patrolling but rather going from point A to point B. The special response unit can still be seen in their 6 man squad walking thought the CBD area, Orchard road and Boat / Clarke Quay areas as will as the MRT stations but out side of there is no physical present of the police to be found.
CCTV provide you with a picture of what happen in real time but in many case are used after the fact to investigate the crime instead of to prevent it or to deter the crime from happening like in the Geylang odd streets area .(Lorong 5 to 21)
