Jaywalking, eating in buses and other tales of Singapore

After my earlier posts on the whole process orientation of Singapore, some of you may have got the impression that Singapore is nothing more than Big Brother in the way it monitors its citizens. Well, the reality is a bit different. I saw people jaywalking with impunity and even sometimes eating food in the buses. Now, given that the police are so scattered, and that CCTVs rely on sampling with little monitoring, it is understandable that people can break the law without getting caught. But the penalties for getting caught are immense. The SGD 500 fine for eating in MRT/buses for instance, ensures that the person will have his costliest meal IF caught. The deterrent factor apart, I noticed that even law abiding citizens do follow the lead of the first rule breaker-this is particularly true in case of jaywalking(crossing the road even when red light to pedestrians).And that is why I guess Singapore has this zero tolerance to such low impact offenses, because they are similar to Stephen Leviit's broken window analogy-if left unattended will encourage the repetition of these offenses.