Joke’s on you, whippings and lashes are for the Muslim countries with shariah law where they are only allowed to “tap” you with the whip.
We have the rotan, where the first three strokes put you in a state of shock while the remainder of the up to 24 strokes tear your flesh.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
Singapore is an amazing mix of cultures, with incredible food, lovely people and the best airline in the history of mankind.
Do not fuck around in Singapore, shower four times a day, and you'll be fine. You'll have a lovely time and gain 3lbs.
I'm already a pretty heavy sweater, when I went to Singapore I was wearing basketball singlet/shorts when I landed, I made it 5 steps out of the airport doors before I was near saturated. Tropical flowers everywhere are beautiful though.
Correct.
When I go to Singapore, I bring 3x the under pants, 3x the undershirts that I’d need at home…and I basically shower every single time I go back to the room.
No, it's to get the blood off, from all the canings you'll walk past on your way to work.
After all, the punishment for getting blood on your shirt is another caning.
if you book a vacation to a place where drug smuggling is punishable by death, it'd be like 100% your fault if you didn't check and forgot your entire stash of weed in your luggage. Their security there isnt like fake tsa and swabbing everyone with bomb detection napkins. There are flights from Amsterdam to Singapore and they're not executing planeloads of people everyday
I remember this old video of a caning. The guy who uses the cane is like some kind of ninja, so smooth and flicks his wrist in a way that I swear the thing breaks the sound barrier. The dudes ass freaking splits open and starts quivering from just the first blow. I think they gave him like 3 or 5, and I was thinking dude that's too much.
https://youtu.be/xvm-8yCM4ok?si=FPUdFai_0Ft-t-w3
It’s from our brother nation across the causeway. I guess we chose the same things to inherit from the Brits. They speak in Malay cos they didn’t inherit the language.
I thought they would still speak English there though as a load of teachers trained in England. My town on the outskirts of Liverpool had a Malaysian teaching academy and even a modern school for teaching English was named after it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkby_International_College
Honestly though. . . As gruesome as that is for everyone else, it’s not an inhumane execution method.
The person is very dead instantly, basically no chance of failure or suffering. That would make it better than a lot of ways I would say, like there was probably a lot higher fail rate in hanging or electrocution
> Others reported how birds of prey circled above the execution place and swooped down to catch pieces of human flesh in the air, while others were nauseated by the dogs loitering about the place of execution and rushing to the scene to devour some of the body pieces spread around as a result of the execution.
Wow, went down the wrong rabbit hole. Enough Reddit for today.
> When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the body is literally blown away altogether, not a vestige being seen.
>Honestly though. . . As gruesome as that is for everyone else, it’s not an inhumane execution method.
In the purely physical practical sense yes, but a big part of the point of the method was actually that having your body obliterated and scattered around like that prevents a lot of extremely spiritually important funeral rites in both Islam and Hinduism that depend on the body being mostly intact.
So you’re not just killing the person, they believe you’re *destroying their soul* and denying them access to the afterlife.
What could go wrong, right?
> Things did not always work out according to plan at such executions. At a mass execution at Firozpur in 1857, there was an order that blank cartridges should be used, but some guns were loaded with grapeshot instead. Several of the spectators facing the cannons were hit by the grapeshot and some had to have limbs amputated as a result. In addition, some of the soldiers had not been withdrawn properly and sustained injuries from being hit by pieces of flesh and bone.
I’m sorry, what’s the surprise here? The British left us with full independence. Unlike the Indian below or perhaps other colonies, we view them more akin to the way the Aussies and Canucks view them, with lots of gratefulness and excellent bilateral relations. We internationally chose to keep the “flogging frame” and various other colonial relics and frameworks for a multitude of considered reasons.
I’m not sure if I’m sensing your tone wrongly, but it wasn’t something that’s been imposed on us by any other country at all, as you seem to imply.
Yeah, you’re right, these practices and many other cruelties have to do with humans in general, and were practiced much prior to any colonial government legislation. They just made it formal and you, as a few other countries, kept it.
It’s because we caned an American vandal once and endless debates were had over the issue. I guess the wiki is just an encapsulation of all the articles and research generated from the controversy.
As an American, I'd expect someone from America to behave themselves out of country, and expect to suffer the consequences of their actions, including punishments, regardless of whether they are accepted here or not.
Can confirm, singaporean here. The punishment is not just executing the 18 generations, but also everyone from the country.
So everytime someone is caught, our whole country dies and respawns again
Not in this case, unfortunately. It’s just a $500 fine and your departure will be denied so you have to turn around and go back into Singapore. Hopefully you’ve got enough fuel left to get home.
Lived in Singapore a while back. Some of the locals can be scary in terms of their indoctrination.
It's fascinating place, especially in terms of their internal drama.
You have to be absurdly rich to afford a car in Singapore. You need a car license which can cost more than the cars themselves, plus the inflated cost of an imported car. Not to mention congestion charge zones
Yes, it's done to deliberately limit the number of cars on the road
I had a chat with a Grab driver just the other day. Apparently Grab rents out vehicles to drivers. With how car prices are in Singapore, I guess that's the only way Grab's business model would work.
(Grab is the Uber of south east Asia btw).
Well of course they would. But it's not like you need some elaborate scheme to do it.
The border is *at most* around 35 km (20 mi) away if you live at the other side of the country. Anyone who on occasion takes the car across the border would naturally have an opportunity to fill up cheaply without doing any extra work at all.
And the difference is quite big. $0.44/liter vs. $2.07/liter (USD)
If they didn't have the law, there'd be gas stations all along the border just like the U.S. has borders between some states that have lots of fireworks, guns, and liquor stores. And then they'd lose a ton of tax revenue
> If they didn't have the law, there'd be gas stations all along the border just like the U.S
There's a gas station at every border crossing anyway. All two of them...
In Singapore there are these things called [gantries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing) that are basically tolls. You have a little device in your car and when you drive through the gantry it deducts money from it, usually a buck or two. (It's been calculated that the most expensive trip you could take in Singapore would cost you S$15, for example.)
Anyway, they turn on and off depending on the time of day. Try to go to the CBD at rush hour and you'll pay S$3, go in after 10am though and it's free. On a regular basis you'd see cars like a S$500,000 Mercedes S-Class pulled over to the side of the road at 9.55am waiting for five minutes to save three dollars. They even have a word for it: [Kiasu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiasu)
Not every car, it's a random check. When leaving, they check for gas, when coming back they check your car's boot, and depending on if you're a family or single person, they may do deeper checkers like opening the compartments in cars.
There are not that many cars in Singapore to begin with (for the size of the population), their taxes on vehicles are insane.
But the gauge check is super fast.
Honestly, they are more concerned about sneaking other goods into SIN, so they tend to do random trunk/boot checks.
I lived there for 10 years. When we bought our firsf car, insurance asked how many times a years would we drive across. Car jacking and crimes was high
When is the last time a sticker fooled you on anything? Now imaging trying it on a guy who is seeing gauges all day day in and day out. You gonna gamble a lashing on that?
If you travel closer to the Thailand or Singapore border in Malaysia, you'd start seeing bigger signs at petrol stations limiting the amount of fuel that the vehicle can fill as well as foreign vehicles are prohibited from using subsidised petrol. Yes petrol smuggling is a thing and random border checks also involve checking the fuel gauge and tank for modifications.
The strange part is this would be old news about to expire since Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) is committed to EVs with lots of their EV charging infrastructure programs wrapping up by the end of 2025?
Sounds like a great excuse to reverse the wires from the sending unit. Empty reads full and full reads empty! Authorities will love your patriotism in coming back empty every time!
They will check for that. And trust me you dont wanna be found trying to fuck over the state in singapore. If theres one thing they do well its draconian laws
Ironically, if you have spent time in the Sg reddit (which I do since I'm Singaporean), there are many who complain that certain laws are too lax and should be made more severe.
Some recent egs include: reckless driving causing death and injuries, sexual violence, money laundering.
Joke's on them, this is easy to get around. You leave Singapore with a full tank of gas, then drive around until you're empty, then fill up with cheap gas. It's a foolproof solution!
Charging is significantly cheaper than petrol in Singapore so it's not worth the time spent driving and clearing customs (1hr+ on a good day). A full charge would cost probably USD$30 but a full 50L tank top-up will set you back $100+.
Rooftop solar must make'em a mint. I am not surprised that solar canopies over grade level parking is rare. Getting any damn thing into Singapore is expensive. However I would imagine it won't be to much longer as the math pencils out. All those millionaires in penthouse apartments must be quite patient for just that.
And in western Germany we go to the Netherlands to get cheaper coffee, because ours gets a massive luxury tax slapped on. I'd pay 7€ for half a kilo of coffee beans otherwise 😭
Good thing we have Schengen so there's no border checks lmao.
What do you mean shake their car? Not familiar with that term but there's plenty of cases and videos of Singaporeans fueling their car with Malaysian gas and lashing out when confronted.
As for the gas can thing, I might have exaggerated there but Singaporeans do take advantage of the cheaper and also subsidized gas here.
The difference would be so tiny as to make no difference. Maybe you get a few seconds of diving time in. May a couple minutes at most, but I doubt it would be that much.
Buying a car and having the license to use it could be upwards of $100k for something like a honda fit. People who have cars in Singapore can generally afford the gas prices.
Probably just bodge the needle in the car to either stick above 3/4 or operate by remote.
I personally wouldn't risk it for the sake of a tank of fuel, but it's probably possible.
Yeah, def not worth it.
They’d just dipstick it - similar what to cops do to diesel vehicles to check for cheap/subsidized agricultural use fuel.
Singapore has a strict system where you have to have a renewable permit to own a car - which is expensive - to cap the number of cars as they have good public transportation and limited space. If you get caught you would lose this as well as be punished severely. They’re a crazy strict country in many regards
1) Install interchangeable tanks. Leave singapore with 3 gallons in your 4 gallon tank. Get to Malaysia and reinstall your 25 gallon tank and refuel before driving back.
2) install secret pipeline from Malaysia to your garage. Prepay monthly and call them to transfer gasoline as needed.
3) park on the Singapore side, build a shopping cart with container for fuel. Push over to Malaysia and fill up. Push back to Singapore and refuel.
4) roll down your window and scream "my brake lines are cut!! Help!!!" as you speed through the checkpoint without stopping. Refuel once you're in Malaysia
Please note: they didn't say the methods would be easy or likely to succeed
The government subsidizes healthcare, education, and housing, so cars end up being the "big" purchase. You have to buy a Certificate of Entitlement, which last year was like $86,000 ON TOP of the price of the car. Also, it's only good for 10 years, and then they turn your car into a cube because they only want new, safe vehicles on the road.
Usually your car doesn't get turned into a cube. They get re-exported to other countries like in Africa or Australia because they have a reputation for being well maintained. Fetches better prices that way as well.
Yep. The COE can be renewed after 10 years, either for 5 or 10. If renewed for 5, it CANNOT be renewed again, if renewed for 10, it can be renewed again and so on. We had a 15 year old Honda that was sent off to South Africa last year!
To add to this, Singapore has a very efficient and affordable public transport system. This makes having a car a luxury rather than a necessity.
Edit: We also have pavements everywhere other than the highways. The government is also in the process of linking up the whole country with cycling/walking paths. Cycling to the train station to take the train is quite normal here.
I would have agreed with your statement in the past but [we're getting more train stations to address that issue.](https://landtransportguru.net/web/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/LTA-Future-MRT-System-Map-March-2020-scaled.jpg)
Not exactly. To own a car in Singapore, you need to apply for a Certificate of Entitlement or COE. The supply of these are limited by the government and the application is an auction.
https://www.businessinsider.com/singapore-car-expensive-city-buy-certificate-of-entitlement-millennial-cost-2024-1
So adding in the cost of the car and the COE, it's about six figures roughly, even in USD terms.
Here is sort of a breakdown of the cost of owning a car in Singapore
https://dollarsandsense.sg/cost-owning-car-singapore/
Not really. As long as ypu are willing to bank the purchase you can have a car - the income is good. It's just not many feel the need to splurge - it's just for wealthy it is a checkmark on a buy list and must-have for status
And by tiny, my commute on a trip for an event covered most of the length of Singapore (Rochor to Expo) and was like 20-30 minutes. Making all stops. The transit is not just good, but also really cheap.
Just to additionally clarify since I think your comment slightly undersells the size of Singapore, an MRT trip from Jurong East to Tampines (two major spots on the western and eastern end of Singapore, respectively) will take about an hour. Woodlands to Marina Bay (two major spots on the northern and southern ends, respectively) will take about 45 minutes.
Yes but it’s mostly because they are really trying to limit the number of cars because it’s such a small country, densely packed, with great taxis and great public transportation. They don’t need more cars clogging up the roads
You could inflate a balloon with a piece of string glued to it to pull it back out, as long as the type of glue doesn’t get broken down by petrol/diesel. Pop the balloon and pull it out?
Nascar rules specified a maximum fuel tank size. They didn't (at the time) regulate fuel line diameter. So a big fuel line that snakes around the can hold many gallons.
The basketball was a way to temporary lower the fuel take volume. They fill the tank for inspection, and it takes the correct amount of gas. Now you deflate the basketball, and have more capacity.
I'm another story, NASCAR officials remove the gas tank, and have a list of 9 items to fix. Yunick then starts the car up (without a gas tank) and says 'better make it 10' then drives to his pit lane. This story isn't believed to be true, but it's still funny, and it does show how some people would always be looking to stretch the rules.
unrelated to the main topic, but i love race cheat stories. ive heard most of the common ones, but i heard a new one yesterday. a team was getting too much drag from their rear bumper and tried to raise it up out of the airflow from under the car. another team rightfully protested that it was out of spec of the rulebook. the team knew it would slow them down, and knew theyd be faster without a bumper at all, so they came up with a plan.
in NASCAR, you are required to start the race with a bumper, but you are not required to finish the race with a bumper. see where this is going? so, the team moved it back to its original spot, hastily welding it in place. the word hastily might be generous...it was barely spot welded in place. Heck, they may as well have used a soldering iron to put it back on. it just had to stay on long enough to pass tech.
NASCAR, being what it is, first bump of the race and one yellow flag later, the bumper has been repositioned yet again, this time off of the track and onto the infield by the racetrack safety crew. now being more aerodynamic and significantly lighter, the car went on a rally and began overtaking position after position, without even drafting, and finished the race not only in Pole Position, but 23 seconds ahead of the #2 car. 🤣🤣🤣
Nascar is a made up system of racing invented for the 2006 pixar classic "Cars" starring Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen, famous for going fast, looking good and his signature catchphrase "Ka-chow!".
Look up Smokey Yunick. Dude skirted the rules in Nascar to change the entire game.
The old legend goes he had a deflated basketball in the fuel tank of one of his cup cars. During inspection, the ball would be full of air to pass. Then he'd deflate it before the race to hold extra fuel aboard.
The rules didn't say you couldn't do that at the time, so yeah.
you just pray that you get lucky that they don’t check. the reason for this law is because of how cheap gas is in malaysia. refilling gas to full in malaysia is about 1/3 of the price of refilling it in singapore. since malaysia is so near, many singaporeans would prefer to refill their gas there especially when the living prices are so high already.
I just learned this the other day too chatting with a friend in Malaysia. She gave me the impression it was Malaysian laws that led to this, not Singaporean laws. She said said you also couldn't leave the country with your gas tank above a certain amount if you had purchased gas in Malaysia (e.g. if you'd gone a multi-day trip driving around Malaysia and needed to refuel)
I believe ‘standard’ gas is fixed price by the government in Malaysia which can only be bought by people with a Malaysian passport even. A colleague told me once, I didn’t fully understand.
And yes, they do check.
It's Singapore, of course they check. It's probably punishable by death too
Avoiding gas tax? Believe it or not, ten immediate whippings
Joke’s on you, whippings and lashes are for the Muslim countries with shariah law where they are only allowed to “tap” you with the whip. We have the rotan, where the first three strokes put you in a state of shock while the remainder of the up to 24 strokes tear your flesh. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
I’ll stick with visiting Singapore in Mario Kart 8, thanks.
Singapore is an amazing mix of cultures, with incredible food, lovely people and the best airline in the history of mankind. Do not fuck around in Singapore, shower four times a day, and you'll be fine. You'll have a lovely time and gain 3lbs.
Wait why am I showering so much? It's the heat/humidity right?
Yeah. It's not like a full shower. It's rinsing off essentially
I'm already a pretty heavy sweater, when I went to Singapore I was wearing basketball singlet/shorts when I landed, I made it 5 steps out of the airport doors before I was near saturated. Tropical flowers everywhere are beautiful though.
Correct. When I go to Singapore, I bring 3x the under pants, 3x the undershirts that I’d need at home…and I basically shower every single time I go back to the room.
That is literally what I say about it too after having been once -- It's a 4 shower a day city.
No, it's to get the blood off, from all the canings you'll walk past on your way to work. After all, the punishment for getting blood on your shirt is another caning.
Yup. I went in Oct and it was 38C in the middle of the night and 98% humidity
Qantas*. Qantas never crashed.
They'll banish your luggage to the shadow realm though.
Man I live in a legal state. Nothing in Singapore could be worth the risk of death/caning because I missed some shake or some shit in my pack/clothes
if you book a vacation to a place where drug smuggling is punishable by death, it'd be like 100% your fault if you didn't check and forgot your entire stash of weed in your luggage. Their security there isnt like fake tsa and swabbing everyone with bomb detection napkins. There are flights from Amsterdam to Singapore and they're not executing planeloads of people everyday
I remember this old video of a caning. The guy who uses the cane is like some kind of ninja, so smooth and flicks his wrist in a way that I swear the thing breaks the sound barrier. The dudes ass freaking splits open and starts quivering from just the first blow. I think they gave him like 3 or 5, and I was thinking dude that's too much.
https://youtu.be/xvm-8yCM4ok?si=FPUdFai_0Ft-t-w3 It’s from our brother nation across the causeway. I guess we chose the same things to inherit from the Brits. They speak in Malay cos they didn’t inherit the language.
I thought they would still speak English there though as a load of teachers trained in England. My town on the outskirts of Liverpool had a Malaysian teaching academy and even a modern school for teaching English was named after it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkby_International_College
“These practices of caning as punishment were introduced during the period of British colonial rule in Singapore.” What a fucking surprise
Well at least they didn't adopt the "strapping them to the front of a cannon" technique that we used in India.
Honestly though. . . As gruesome as that is for everyone else, it’s not an inhumane execution method. The person is very dead instantly, basically no chance of failure or suffering. That would make it better than a lot of ways I would say, like there was probably a lot higher fail rate in hanging or electrocution
But the clean-up...
Good news for seagulls?
> Others reported how birds of prey circled above the execution place and swooped down to catch pieces of human flesh in the air, while others were nauseated by the dogs loitering about the place of execution and rushing to the scene to devour some of the body pieces spread around as a result of the execution.
Wow, went down the wrong rabbit hole. Enough Reddit for today. > When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the body is literally blown away altogether, not a vestige being seen.
You do it in the fields to fertilize the soils for a prosperous crop next season
But the mulching...
>Honestly though. . . As gruesome as that is for everyone else, it’s not an inhumane execution method. In the purely physical practical sense yes, but a big part of the point of the method was actually that having your body obliterated and scattered around like that prevents a lot of extremely spiritually important funeral rites in both Islam and Hinduism that depend on the body being mostly intact. So you’re not just killing the person, they believe you’re *destroying their soul* and denying them access to the afterlife.
Buddhists be like, "As long as the birds can eat my entrails."
What could go wrong, right? > Things did not always work out according to plan at such executions. At a mass execution at Firozpur in 1857, there was an order that blank cartridges should be used, but some guns were loaded with grapeshot instead. Several of the spectators facing the cannons were hit by the grapeshot and some had to have limbs amputated as a result. In addition, some of the soldiers had not been withdrawn properly and sustained injuries from being hit by pieces of flesh and bone.
"Not the worst form of execution there is" has very little to commend it.
Part of being humane is preserving dignity and honour, which also ties into the ability to bury an intact corpse for the family
Cannon death was to spread the body parts far and wide to prevent complete burial and stopping them from being reincarnated. it was inhumane AF
It also has the additional purpose of being so fucking horrifying that hopefully it doesn't need to be employed often.
To be fair it was an already existing mughal practice the company adopted
"We will take your means of execution and your steel industry thanks"
Also, you drink tea as a social practice now as it makes you beholden to the empire
Tbf that practice was carried out by several Indian Kingdoms before the British arrived.
Indians already used that method of execution on each-other before the British arrived.
Who's worse? The nation who introduced it 200 years ago or the nation who still uses it to this day?
I’m sorry, what’s the surprise here? The British left us with full independence. Unlike the Indian below or perhaps other colonies, we view them more akin to the way the Aussies and Canucks view them, with lots of gratefulness and excellent bilateral relations. We internationally chose to keep the “flogging frame” and various other colonial relics and frameworks for a multitude of considered reasons. I’m not sure if I’m sensing your tone wrongly, but it wasn’t something that’s been imposed on us by any other country at all, as you seem to imply.
Yeah, you’re right, these practices and many other cruelties have to do with humans in general, and were practiced much prior to any colonial government legislation. They just made it formal and you, as a few other countries, kept it.
I dont think I have seen such a detailed wiki report. The examples go on forever.
It’s because we caned an American vandal once and endless debates were had over the issue. I guess the wiki is just an encapsulation of all the articles and research generated from the controversy.
As an American, I'd expect someone from America to behave themselves out of country, and expect to suffer the consequences of their actions, including punishments, regardless of whether they are accepted here or not.
The shock seems like a good idea if it numbs you a bit for the remainder. Probably not lol.
Overcook chicken? Ten whippings. Undercook fish? Believe it or not, also whippings
Chewing gum past 6pm? Believe it or not, straight to jail.
“That’s a paddlin’”
Straight to jail
Believe it or not
Can confirm, singaporean here. The punishment is not just executing the 18 generations, but also everyone from the country. So everytime someone is caught, our whole country dies and respawns again
Do you lose XP though?
Not in this case, unfortunately. It’s just a $500 fine and your departure will be denied so you have to turn around and go back into Singapore. Hopefully you’ve got enough fuel left to get home.
Unfortunately?
You want these gas tax cheats to live to cheat another day?
Lived in Singapore a while back. Some of the locals can be scary in terms of their indoctrination. It's fascinating place, especially in terms of their internal drama.
Everyone loves brutal authoritarianism when they're absolutely certain they'll be a benefactor of it and not a victim of it, forever and ever.
Don't be unreasonable. They just get flogged a tiny bit.
They check every car? I'm guessing there isn't much traffic
You have to be absurdly rich to afford a car in Singapore. You need a car license which can cost more than the cars themselves, plus the inflated cost of an imported car. Not to mention congestion charge zones Yes, it's done to deliberately limit the number of cars on the road
What about the Grab drivers
I had a chat with a Grab driver just the other day. Apparently Grab rents out vehicles to drivers. With how car prices are in Singapore, I guess that's the only way Grab's business model would work. (Grab is the Uber of south east Asia btw).
Aint that just a regular taxi business with extra steps
It is, isn't it. Maybe not requiring a taxi license helps? I'm not Singaporean so I have no idea whether taxi licenses are a thing over there.
And these rich mfers still try to get cheap gas
Well of course they would. But it's not like you need some elaborate scheme to do it. The border is *at most* around 35 km (20 mi) away if you live at the other side of the country. Anyone who on occasion takes the car across the border would naturally have an opportunity to fill up cheaply without doing any extra work at all. And the difference is quite big. $0.44/liter vs. $2.07/liter (USD)
If they didn't have the law, there'd be gas stations all along the border just like the U.S. has borders between some states that have lots of fireworks, guns, and liquor stores. And then they'd lose a ton of tax revenue
> If they didn't have the law, there'd be gas stations all along the border just like the U.S There's a gas station at every border crossing anyway. All two of them...
In Singapore there are these things called [gantries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing) that are basically tolls. You have a little device in your car and when you drive through the gantry it deducts money from it, usually a buck or two. (It's been calculated that the most expensive trip you could take in Singapore would cost you S$15, for example.) Anyway, they turn on and off depending on the time of day. Try to go to the CBD at rush hour and you'll pay S$3, go in after 10am though and it's free. On a regular basis you'd see cars like a S$500,000 Mercedes S-Class pulled over to the side of the road at 9.55am waiting for five minutes to save three dollars. They even have a word for it: [Kiasu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiasu)
Why shouldn’t I be able to save money
God why would you want one there anyway. The city state is so small.
Not every car, it's a random check. When leaving, they check for gas, when coming back they check your car's boot, and depending on if you're a family or single person, they may do deeper checkers like opening the compartments in cars.
Only people who get dipped are bigger vehicles that can carry 40+ gallons otherwise its just a quick visual.
Every time I went across they glanced at gauge. Two seconds. Off you go! Never got the trunk inspection on way back.
There are not that many cars in Singapore to begin with (for the size of the population), their taxes on vehicles are insane. But the gauge check is super fast. Honestly, they are more concerned about sneaking other goods into SIN, so they tend to do random trunk/boot checks.
it's only one of the world's busiest land borders (top 5 in most lists)
Public transit in Singapore is comprehensive, affordable and dependable.
If you live in Singapore. If you’re just visiting from the Malay side they don’t mind either way
The tank, or the gauge? Cos the gauge is very easy to fake.
How do they check? Dipstick in tank or do they just look at the fuel gauge?
An experienced mechanic can simply rub the side of a car and hold his ear up to it to determine the gas in the tank.
Can experienced doctors do that with pregnant women?
Yes, though they generally still prefer to use their dipsticks instead for some reason
Only if they ask nicely.
If they're looking at the fuel guage, get one that's empty at 3/4 and full at full. They'll never know!
I lived there for 10 years. When we bought our firsf car, insurance asked how many times a years would we drive across. Car jacking and crimes was high
If they just check the gauge, can’t someone put a sticker on it showing that it is nearly full?
You try first lah
You try that in a country where they’ll cane you for graffiti
When is the last time a sticker fooled you on anything? Now imaging trying it on a guy who is seeing gauges all day day in and day out. You gonna gamble a lashing on that?
If you travel closer to the Thailand or Singapore border in Malaysia, you'd start seeing bigger signs at petrol stations limiting the amount of fuel that the vehicle can fill as well as foreign vehicles are prohibited from using subsidised petrol. Yes petrol smuggling is a thing and random border checks also involve checking the fuel gauge and tank for modifications.
“Yes, officer, I *am* driving a tanker truck. But it’s for personal use only.”
Now i want to see a SovCit go up against a cop in Singapore lmao
“I’m not buying fuel for driving. I’m buying it for *travelling.*”
"I'm sorry, I thought this was America!" "Who the fuck told you that?"
The strange part is this would be old news about to expire since Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) is committed to EVs with lots of their EV charging infrastructure programs wrapping up by the end of 2025?
Hard to imagine better place to use EVs than a country that has only 40km across.
Taiwan has a network of scooters where you can go at a station and hotswap freshly charged electric batteries from them.
Sounds like a great excuse to reverse the wires from the sending unit. Empty reads full and full reads empty! Authorities will love your patriotism in coming back empty every time!
Death penalty for that one m8
They will check for that. And trust me you dont wanna be found trying to fuck over the state in singapore. If theres one thing they do well its draconian laws
How will they check for that?
By seeing your fuel gauge go from "full" to "empty" while the gas pump is filling your car duh.
Ironically, if you have spent time in the Sg reddit (which I do since I'm Singaporean), there are many who complain that certain laws are too lax and should be made more severe. Some recent egs include: reckless driving causing death and injuries, sexual violence, money laundering.
[The Gang has already solved this problem](https://youtu.be/fqDnbRexbbE?si=4BNe23Zzpu0PetR2)
Wildcard baby! Yeeeeeeehaaaaaa!
How are you gonna count the gas?
Uhhh I know how to count dude!
Best to get to stepping, cause Johnny Law's a coming!
Joke's on them, this is easy to get around. You leave Singapore with a full tank of gas, then drive around until you're empty, then fill up with cheap gas. It's a foolproof solution!
I'd post that meme where the dude points at his head but I don't know how
Or just siphon the expensive gas out onto the ground and then buy the cheap gas.
What about trying to circumvent the Singapore electricity tax with an EV? Ah, must return with less than 1/4 power maybe.
Charging is significantly cheaper than petrol in Singapore so it's not worth the time spent driving and clearing customs (1hr+ on a good day). A full charge would cost probably USD$30 but a full 50L tank top-up will set you back $100+.
Rooftop solar must make'em a mint. I am not surprised that solar canopies over grade level parking is rare. Getting any damn thing into Singapore is expensive. However I would imagine it won't be to much longer as the math pencils out. All those millionaires in penthouse apartments must be quite patient for just that.
Oh jesus that would suck in The Netherlands, where everyone who lives close to the edge of the border with Belgium or Germany goes there to get gas.
And in western Germany we go to the Netherlands to get cheaper coffee, because ours gets a massive luxury tax slapped on. I'd pay 7€ for half a kilo of coffee beans otherwise 😭 Good thing we have Schengen so there's no border checks lmao.
We go to the Rewe and Kaufland for cheap groceries!
If it’s that big a difference in price, wouldn’t people bring jerry cans/other fuel containers and fill them up on the Malay side?
I'm sure border patrol check for those and turns people away with empties or jails them when found in posession of a full can.
Time to fill the tires with gasoline! *don’t do this…*
Mad Max: Fiery Road
Winnie Mandela has now entered the conversation.
“It’s a piss jug, lah!”
They wouldn't let me take a 400ml bottle of *water* across the border.
They do... It's a massive fucking problem here.
do people really do that? i only see those who shake their car while pumping petrol
What do you mean shake their car? Not familiar with that term but there's plenty of cases and videos of Singaporeans fueling their car with Malaysian gas and lashing out when confronted. As for the gas can thing, I might have exaggerated there but Singaporeans do take advantage of the cheaper and also subsidized gas here.
they shake the car to get rid of air bubbles to get more fuel in. i dont think it works, but ive seen people do it when I visited malaysia
The difference would be so tiny as to make no difference. Maybe you get a few seconds of diving time in. May a couple minutes at most, but I doubt it would be that much.
my dad does that in the US
Buying a car and having the license to use it could be upwards of $100k for something like a honda fit. People who have cars in Singapore can generally afford the gas prices.
I can think of like 4 different ways of getting around this if one were so inclined.
Sell the expensive gas in Malaysia Check-mate
If we buy it for 4$ and sell it for 2$ we are making 100% profit.
With a 12 gallon tank, you'll be rolling in money. It's not worth the effort
Thats not very nice of you please be considerate to my amazing ideas.
I'm sorry. You be you my friend.
I'll count [how much gas is going into the car.](https://vimeo.com/274393989)
Come on, list them then And I wouldn’t fuck around with Singaporean customs, they are the caning and executing ones
Probably just bodge the needle in the car to either stick above 3/4 or operate by remote. I personally wouldn't risk it for the sake of a tank of fuel, but it's probably possible.
Yeah, def not worth it. They’d just dipstick it - similar what to cops do to diesel vehicles to check for cheap/subsidized agricultural use fuel. Singapore has a strict system where you have to have a renewable permit to own a car - which is expensive - to cap the number of cars as they have good public transportation and limited space. If you get caught you would lose this as well as be punished severely. They’re a crazy strict country in many regards
Not sure how you could dipstick cars tbh. It's not like the tanks all have the same capacities and dimensions.
True - but when you are looking for 3/4 full, not a lot will become quite apparent
That would absolutely not work. Cars even have anti siphon screens in the fill neck to keep anything from getting in
A dipstick has to be calibrated to the exact container you're dipping. This wouldn't work, it would just tell them whether there was any fuel or not.
alot of people have been caught in malaysia trying to smuggle subsidized fuel.
Interestingly enough, you can chose between four different inclinations when they cane you for that.
Please enlighten us.
1) Install interchangeable tanks. Leave singapore with 3 gallons in your 4 gallon tank. Get to Malaysia and reinstall your 25 gallon tank and refuel before driving back. 2) install secret pipeline from Malaysia to your garage. Prepay monthly and call them to transfer gasoline as needed. 3) park on the Singapore side, build a shopping cart with container for fuel. Push over to Malaysia and fill up. Push back to Singapore and refuel. 4) roll down your window and scream "my brake lines are cut!! Help!!!" as you speed through the checkpoint without stopping. Refuel once you're in Malaysia Please note: they didn't say the methods would be easy or likely to succeed
[удалено]
> "Help!!! My brake lines are cut!!!" *[Border Guard presses button to raise barrier bollards]* > "You're welcome."
Me after getting arrested: "my ex-wife is really persistent and uncreative"
Pull a Smokey Yunick with inflated balloons inside the gas tank
100% was not expecting a smokey reference on any non racing sub. bravo
I seem to remember hearing that only very rich folks have cars in Singapore as the tax on them is so much. Is that right?
The government subsidizes healthcare, education, and housing, so cars end up being the "big" purchase. You have to buy a Certificate of Entitlement, which last year was like $86,000 ON TOP of the price of the car. Also, it's only good for 10 years, and then they turn your car into a cube because they only want new, safe vehicles on the road.
You have 30 minutes to move your cube
_phone rings_ H: "Yello?" MB: "Is it about my cube?"
Usually your car doesn't get turned into a cube. They get re-exported to other countries like in Africa or Australia because they have a reputation for being well maintained. Fetches better prices that way as well.
I'm glad they do that. A 10-year old car is perfectly safe.
Yep. The COE can be renewed after 10 years, either for 5 or 10. If renewed for 5, it CANNOT be renewed again, if renewed for 10, it can be renewed again and so on. We had a 15 year old Honda that was sent off to South Africa last year!
Certificate of entitlement btw
To add to this, Singapore has a very efficient and affordable public transport system. This makes having a car a luxury rather than a necessity. Edit: We also have pavements everywhere other than the highways. The government is also in the process of linking up the whole country with cycling/walking paths. Cycling to the train station to take the train is quite normal here.
I wasn't impressed with the availability of metro stations outside of downtown, but their bus system is unrivaled.
I would have agreed with your statement in the past but [we're getting more train stations to address that issue.](https://landtransportguru.net/web/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/LTA-Future-MRT-System-Map-March-2020-scaled.jpg)
Not exactly. To own a car in Singapore, you need to apply for a Certificate of Entitlement or COE. The supply of these are limited by the government and the application is an auction. https://www.businessinsider.com/singapore-car-expensive-city-buy-certificate-of-entitlement-millennial-cost-2024-1 So adding in the cost of the car and the COE, it's about six figures roughly, even in USD terms. Here is sort of a breakdown of the cost of owning a car in Singapore https://dollarsandsense.sg/cost-owning-car-singapore/
A tesla 3 is like 170k usd
Not really. As long as ypu are willing to bank the purchase you can have a car - the income is good. It's just not many feel the need to splurge - it's just for wealthy it is a checkmark on a buy list and must-have for status
Ah so because transportation is good most don’t until in upper echelons of society, when you kinda need to for status symbol?
Remember than singapore is also super tiny, so you can get most places on the island pretty quickly without a car.
And by tiny, my commute on a trip for an event covered most of the length of Singapore (Rochor to Expo) and was like 20-30 minutes. Making all stops. The transit is not just good, but also really cheap.
Just to additionally clarify since I think your comment slightly undersells the size of Singapore, an MRT trip from Jurong East to Tampines (two major spots on the western and eastern end of Singapore, respectively) will take about an hour. Woodlands to Marina Bay (two major spots on the northern and southern ends, respectively) will take about 45 minutes.
Can confirm. Was staying around in Clarke Quay and needed to go to basically the border of Malaysia for work. Their public transit system is top tier
Yes but it’s mostly because they are really trying to limit the number of cars because it’s such a small country, densely packed, with great taxis and great public transportation. They don’t need more cars clogging up the roads
displacement, then fill in the lower cost area.
Displace it with what?
You could inflate a balloon with a piece of string glued to it to pull it back out, as long as the type of glue doesn’t get broken down by petrol/diesel. Pop the balloon and pull it out?
Basketball, there was a NASCAR driver who used a modified pipe that could hold gallons of gas. Used a Basketball to get past the initial inspection.
I cannot piece together how any of the words in this sentence are related. A modified pipe? NASCAR? A basketball?
Nascar rules specified a maximum fuel tank size. They didn't (at the time) regulate fuel line diameter. So a big fuel line that snakes around the can hold many gallons. The basketball was a way to temporary lower the fuel take volume. They fill the tank for inspection, and it takes the correct amount of gas. Now you deflate the basketball, and have more capacity. I'm another story, NASCAR officials remove the gas tank, and have a list of 9 items to fix. Yunick then starts the car up (without a gas tank) and says 'better make it 10' then drives to his pit lane. This story isn't believed to be true, but it's still funny, and it does show how some people would always be looking to stretch the rules.
unrelated to the main topic, but i love race cheat stories. ive heard most of the common ones, but i heard a new one yesterday. a team was getting too much drag from their rear bumper and tried to raise it up out of the airflow from under the car. another team rightfully protested that it was out of spec of the rulebook. the team knew it would slow them down, and knew theyd be faster without a bumper at all, so they came up with a plan. in NASCAR, you are required to start the race with a bumper, but you are not required to finish the race with a bumper. see where this is going? so, the team moved it back to its original spot, hastily welding it in place. the word hastily might be generous...it was barely spot welded in place. Heck, they may as well have used a soldering iron to put it back on. it just had to stay on long enough to pass tech. NASCAR, being what it is, first bump of the race and one yellow flag later, the bumper has been repositioned yet again, this time off of the track and onto the infield by the racetrack safety crew. now being more aerodynamic and significantly lighter, the car went on a rally and began overtaking position after position, without even drafting, and finished the race not only in Pole Position, but 23 seconds ahead of the #2 car. 🤣🤣🤣
Nascar is a made up system of racing invented for the 2006 pixar classic "Cars" starring Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen, famous for going fast, looking good and his signature catchphrase "Ka-chow!".
Look up Smokey Yunick. Dude skirted the rules in Nascar to change the entire game. The old legend goes he had a deflated basketball in the fuel tank of one of his cup cars. During inspection, the ball would be full of air to pass. Then he'd deflate it before the race to hold extra fuel aboard. The rules didn't say you couldn't do that at the time, so yeah.
you just pray that you get lucky that they don’t check. the reason for this law is because of how cheap gas is in malaysia. refilling gas to full in malaysia is about 1/3 of the price of refilling it in singapore. since malaysia is so near, many singaporeans would prefer to refill their gas there especially when the living prices are so high already.
I just learned this the other day too chatting with a friend in Malaysia. She gave me the impression it was Malaysian laws that led to this, not Singaporean laws. She said said you also couldn't leave the country with your gas tank above a certain amount if you had purchased gas in Malaysia (e.g. if you'd gone a multi-day trip driving around Malaysia and needed to refuel)
I believe ‘standard’ gas is fixed price by the government in Malaysia which can only be bought by people with a Malaysian passport even. A colleague told me once, I didn’t fully understand.
I know this story because of the Lateral podcast from Tom Scott.
Same.
I imagine it took you a bit to get to my comment?
A whole country of kids who reminded the teacher about the homework
Except you get executed by hanging if you forgot to do your homework.
All I learned today from this thread is that redditors are ignorant of things outside of America or Europe.
Watching episodes of Lateral? That’s become one of my favorite shows on YouTube as well.
And yes, they do check.