laremy.sg

Last year, I wrote about how convenient your service was when it came to renewing my motorcycle insurance.

NOW LOOK AT THE MONSTER YOU HAVE BECOME:

AND ON YOUR WEBSITE:

What is – I don’t even – which hamster told you that customers are desirous of this heinous pigletry???

I don’t want to “call [my] agent or [your] 24-hour hotline” because I don’t need to talk to a human being to do this.

I just want to click a button and give you my money so that you can insure Le Poots and I – that is all.

Like what you see in this picture here, just in case you’ve forgotten what convenience and customer service is all about:

At the same time, it seems my premium has increased to $322.58. Why?

If you think this is an uneducated grouse, don’t worry – I know what the basic principles of insurance entail.

Nevertheless, my question centres on a logical Key Performance Indicator that all efficient insurers should adopt (or should have at least adopted), and that is: insurers must aim to maintain or reduce the year-on-year premiums that a customer has to pay.

But why can’t insurers meet that aim in Singapore?

Is it because of:

• Bad practices and policies with regard to letting drivers and motor workshops inflate claim amounts?
• No one wanting to take the lead by doing the morally correct thing and streamlining/shaking-up the claims process so that us consumers can benefit from ethical decisions?

I have no ready answers.

But if anything, ladies and gentlemen, this is yet another reason why we need honest and customer-oriented people in charge of the organisations and institutions in our country.

Problem: Inconsiderate, selfish boors who park indiscriminately, thereby damaging Pooters (move your mouse cursor over the pictures for comments).

Solution (or part thereof): Seng Kwang Metal Industrial Co.

Had to get a custom made In-vehicle Unit (IU) bracket with a lifetime guarantee i.e. if it’s damaged, bring it back to the shop and they guys’ll do it up for free.

I paid $80; I’m not too sure if I got ripped off because I read some posts on the Singapore Bike Forum where the posters claim they paid $60 to $70 for their brackets. But those posts are 5 years old and I’m guessing the $10 increase is because of… inflation?

Anyway, if you’re a biker and you’re looking for custom-made brackets, call 6481 9580 and/or head down to:

Seng Kwang Metal Industrial Co.
Ang Mo Kio Autopoint
10 Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 2A
#05-31
Singapore 568047

It’s a long and winding route to the top of the building, but just follow the signs and you’ll be fine.

Look for Gilbert (9785 9166) and/or William (9857 0033).

1. 6.45pm. Pooting merrily back home. Maybe not so merrily, but still pooting, nevertheless.
2. I’m in the middle lane of a three-lane road.
3. Left lane is a bus lane that’s in operation so technically I’m in in the slow-moving vehicle lane.
4. Comfort cab in right-most lane drives recklessly – as usual – and opportunistically (or recklessly, perhaps) swerves into my lane.
5. Whatever for? I don’t know. There is no space to be had and I am occupying the lane.
6. Still. Comfort cab drives recklessly - as usual – and opportunistically (or recklessly, perhaps) swerves into my lane, nearly side-swiping me in the process.
7. Did I mention the Comfort cab was driving recklessly? I did? Well, the Comfort cab was rather reckless and it nearly side-swiped me.
8. Without warning, the Comfort cab recklessly swerves away from me, back into the right-most lane, from whence it recklessly came.
9. Wanted to be angry, but decided against it because I found the irony too… ironic.
10. The Comfort cab had on its bumper an advertising sticker from W!ld Rice’s Emily of Emerald Hill show which said: “DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT MADE ME WHAT I AM?”
11. I have appended a visual of what said taxi looks like for your kind perusal.



12. Laugh. Or at least pretend to like it.

I’m extremely annoyed with the lack of ethics that a lot of Singaporean mechanics possess.

These wrangling pirates revel in a cut-throat ethos that places their customers’ needs below their shop’s bottom line.

To explain, Pooters’s battery finally yielded the ghost at the start of the work-week.

Because I didn’t have the time to get a replacement earlier, I went down to the shops near my home in the hope that I could buy a battery, return home, fix Pooters up, and carry on with the rest of my Saturday.

FAT CHANCE IN HELL.

I was quoted a price of $90 at one shop and $60 at the next shop. I knew a battery didn’t cost that much, but I had no way of verifying that at that point in time.

Anyway, I gave some excuse about having to make sure it was the correct model and left the shops.

But I was so furious that they tried to take advantage of me obviously because of my n00b-ly ‘jiak kentang’ demeanour/inability to speak a Chinese language well: Hokkien Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, etc.

Pseudo-sociological ramblings aside, this pillagery probably worked last time in the age of no Internet.

Now that information is more perfect than it was before, however, a phone call to Lim Ah Boy (LAB) Shop when I got home provided more clarity – a Yuasa 12N9-4B-1 battery is worth $32, if it matters to anyone else.

I learnt something though: I could have saved myself much grief if I had called up the shops to check the prices + convinced myself that the trip down to LAB was worth the trouble.

Since the worm of conscience will never begnaw the souls of most of these louts, I’ve never been more convinced that there’s probably a market for English-speaking, socially-conscious motorcycle mechanics.

Unfortunately, there’s only so much one can do with a BA in English (and a PGDE to boot). But if you’re my student, and you can tell me how many King Richard III references I’ve made, you win a prize.

Had to go for a Digital Storytelling Workshop organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore over the last few days. This is the product of the workshop.

The YouTube link here in case you can’t see the embedded video.

The script we had to write:

Pooters the Happy Scooter
By Laremy Lee

The first thing I do before first-time pillion riders get on my bike is to introduce my scooter to them. “My scooter’s name is Pooters,” I will say. “Pooters?” they will ask. “But why?” My response: “Because it poots.”

Pooters is a Vespa ET8 that I’ve owned since receiving my motorcycle license back in 2004. When I bought Pooters, it was black in colour. After Pooters and I met with our first accident in 2005, however, my father nagged me into painting Pooters white. Since then, Pooters and I have been in two more accidents, so maybe it’s not really about its colour.

Pooters has a knack of endearing itself to everyone it meets. While Pooters’s fan base is innumerable, let me settle this matter once and for all: I am Pooters’s biggest fan. After me, comes my girlfriend, and after her, the cats in my neighbourhood. I just wish they’d stop leaving their paw prints on Pooters’s seat.

I like to think that the reason why Pooters is so popular is because Pooters is A Happy Scooter that smiles at everyone and everything it sees. I know it sounds like mere whimsy on my part, but rest assured that you’re not gonna get a chance to ride on Pooters if you don’t agree with us.

Though it isn’t always rainbows and unicorns with Pooters, you know. One of my biggest bugbears is Pooters’s temperament: it often breaks down at the most inconvenient of times. Compound that with Singapore’s penchant for rain, and it’s a surefire recipe for an unpleasant commute.

Does this mean I’ll be trading Pooters in for another vehicle anytime soon? Well, for all its quirks, Pooters occupies a special place in my heart. Until the day comes for us to ride under the giant ERP gantry in the sky, you’ll still find us pooting merrily down the roads of Singapore together, Pooters and I.