Why is this happening?

super structures with declining human spirits?

Dear friends,

I am just catching up on my last few days' newspapers. I would like to share with you three stories, which in my opinion, share similar traits.

First story is about an incident between Ms Rachel Lim and a Caucasian man on a SBS bus. She made a phone call to her daughter. The Caucasian, who was seated across her, came over, tapped on her shoulder and told her to get lost for being noisy. Expletives are alleged to have been vocalised by Caucasian. She threatened to report to police and he encouraged her. On a double-decker bus, she went down to tell the driver. Driver, as per SBS's instruction, stopped the bus and kept the bus "locked" until police arrived. Caucasian was pissed that the bus has stopped (and perhaps getting anxious he could be in trouble) and started to prise open the door after pressing the bell repeatedly. Ms Lim, upon seeing that, put herself between him and the door, to prevent him from leaving. He SLAMMED his body into her. (I guess it would be like a rugby world cup.)

Second story. Mr Ong Thiam Kwee stopped his car without signalling to let his daughter off. Dr Ho King Peng sounded his horn in response to the sudden stop without warning. Mr Ong got out of his car, walked to Dr Ho, gesticulated vigorously and culminating to Mr Ong smashing Dr Ho's windscreen with his right fist.

Third story. Mr Stefan Masuhr, a high-ranking RBS executive in his Bentley, who was alleged to have smashed the windscreen of a Mercedes-Benz, driven by a Mdm Wang, who was alleged to have cut into his lane suddenly and causing him to brake suddenly. Consequently, his 3 1/2 year-old daughter (apparently not wearing seat belt) hit her head on the seat in front of her.

What are the common traits observed in all these incidents?

• All incidents involved matured adults.
• All are relatively educated and feisty in letting the other parties know what each party stands for. (Not sure about Mdm Wang. Not much info on her.)
• The alleged violent parties have "lost it" at the spark of a moment.
• They all happened in Singapore (obviously.. given my biased sampling.. haha!), a country now noted to be getting crowded and compressed on buses, MRTs and roads.
• Each party in each incident has their respective concerns at the respective time of incidents. 

The Caucasian man in the bus maybe really trying to tell an annoying woman to respect other people's right to some peace instead of asking other people to listen to her phone conversation. Rachel was running late and could be trying to tame her children over the phone.

Mr Ong may have stopped suddenly as he could have been too preoccupied with finding a safe place to let her daughter alight and thus did not signalled. Dr Ho was possibly trying to remind Mr Ong to signal first before stopping.

Stefan was just enraged when his children got hurt by the sudden cutting of lane without signalling. Again nothing much about Mdm Wang.

Last words on this

I am just wondering whether the bus driver should have opened the bus doors if he/she could sense the situation boiling over. I am hoping that these incidents do not represent a deeper underlying problem that is waiting to escalate. Let's calm down.