Recently witness quite a few cars zipping in and out of lanes trying to get to their destination faster by driving like Formula One racers on the road.

One of them started off behind my car at Buona Vista flyover and entered AYE. Very quickly, he cut right in front and try to speed his way forward. Now along the way, he couldn't get more than 10 car length ahead due to the heavy morning traffic. Eventually when he exited at Rochor, he was no more than 3 seconds ahead of me. All I did was just stick to my lane and drove comfortably, without thinking of overtaking the car ahead of me.

Another case started at ECP after the Rochor exit towards Jurong. A yellow Suzuki swift also zip in and out of lanes trying to get to his destination faster. This time, he managed to go further ahead such that I lost sight of him. But when I took the Clementi Ave 2 exit along AYE, I saw this yellow Suzuki swift again with its characteristic white rim tyres and ah beng driver in shades. I managed to catch up with him after all and even stopped besides him at the traffic lights. We went off in different directions from that point onwards.

If humans are rational, why waste the fuel to drive aggressively. Is the gain of a minute really worth 10-20% extra in fuel cost? Most important of all, what is the expected return for driving aggressively? Let's do a mathematical estimate with the following assumptions.

1. Let's assume a typical trip from point A to point B takes about 15 minutes or 900 seconds in Singapore
2. Let's assume that if one drive aggressively on the road, you will save 10% of your trip time, or 90 seconds
3. Let's assume that by driving aggressively on the road, you will increase your odds of meeting an accident by 6 fold.
4. Let's assume that an average driver will be involved in a road accident once every 10 years or once every 6000 trips. Therefore an aggressively driver will be involved in a road accident once every 1000 trips.
5. Let's assume that with every road accident, you have to spend an average of 24 hours of your time to settle it (including reporting accident, police reports, repairs, medical care, insurance claims etc).

Therefore, an aggressive driver will save (90 x 1000 - 24x60x60) x 6 = 6 hours in 10 years. Of course, that's assuming that the accidents do not kill you, if that happens, the equation will change and time will be negative infinity. And also, assuming that the accidents do not permanently scar you or disable you or bar you from driving, if that's the case the equation will change and time wasted will be very big instead. If you factor these inside the calculation, or if you just factor in the death part, it is sufficient to tilt the results completely.

So why drive aggressively? It's just not worth it.
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But having said that, humans will still drive aggressively, it is a choice that one makes. Just make an informed choice and bear with the consequences.

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Same thing applies to all our choices. Be it choosing which CCA to join, which homework to complete first, it's about choices. In JC, you have to make those choices, but make informed choices. Irrational, it may be.