The Lady with the Dogs

The line between life and death is only a thin line. Yet, it is amazing how some people can just take their life for granted by being unnecessarily careless or ignorant.

When I was staying at Clementi Estate, I would often take my two dogs for walks around mid night or sometimes as late as 2.00a.m. My dogs were toilet trained and hence it is necessary to take them out for their walks twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. No matter how tired I was, I would walk them in the night.

Ever so often I would notice taxis parked at car parks with engines running, and inside the taxi drivers would be sound asleep in the cool comfort of their vehicles!
This is dangerous as they might die from carbon monoxide poisoning! Many of my students in River Valley High School have fathers who work as taxi drivers. I would often telephone the police to report the taxis and our wonderful police officers would come almost immediately to wake up the taxi drivers. This went on for a number of years until the officers started to nickname me "The Lady with the Dogs"!

I always tell my friends since I can't join the army, police force or navy, this is my little "national service" to the country - that of helping to save precious lives.

I would appeal to readers to do likewise if you were to see taxidrivers sound asleep in their cars with windows wound up and engines running. Driving is taxing work and our poor taxi drivers sometimes drive very long hours if they do not have relief drivers.

Gan Chau