EVERY few minutes, the blare of horns breaks the silence of the night.

An impatient truck driver wants those farther up Woodlands Road to move ahead. A gap has opened up, taking the line a little closer to the immigration checkpoint.

Other drivers follow suit for no other reason than to break the monotony of starting, stopping and then starting again.

For three weeks now, queues of big vehicles can be seen snaking back to Kranji, some 1.5km away.

A pump attendant at the sole petrol kiosk in Woodlands Road said he cannot recall such bumper-to- bumper traffic in his 20 years of working there.

There's no doubt other travellers have had to put up with longer waits as well - everyone has to have his thumbprint scanned, something that was done selectively in the past. On top of this, all vehicles are checked, even schoolbuses.

But lorry drivers have been most affected, and the mood among them when The Straits Times visited Woodlands Road early on Tuesday morning can be described in one word: restless.

Some had left their cabins to stretch their legs, chat with fellow sufferers or puff on a cigarette.

A group of drivers who worked for a vegetable wholesaler had laid out sheets of newspaper on the road and were playing cards.

The six mobile toilets provided by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) were hardly used.

Malaysian driver G.K. Tan, 57, who travels between Pasir Gudang in Johor and Singapore almost every day, scoffed at them.

Lorry drivers just do it in the bushes, he said.

Sanitary conditions are of far less concern to him than lack of sleep. Forced to stay awake to make his way up front slowly, he figured he has had about two hours of sleep a night for the past fortnight.

'It's dangerous for lorry drivers to work on such little sleep,' he said.

'Some of us are ferrying dangerous substances and have to drive to as far as Penang. What happens if we get into an accident?'

But getting past the Singapore checkpoint does not mean a clear road into Malaysia. Because the lorries carry goods, they must also pass through the Malaysian cargo customs - which does not operate between 11pm and 6am.

But there, it's a slightly better wait for the drivers, who simply park their trucks in the customs complex, switch off their engines and catch 40 winks.

At the complex in Johor, several trucks were parked within the compound by 2am.

In an hour, about 100 trucks and lorries had formed a queue from the Johor customs complex along the Causeway, almost reaching the Woodlands Checkpoint.

Mr Tan hopes the nightmare will end soon. 'If this continues, I can't go on,' he said.

A spokesman for the Royal Malaysian Customs told The Straits Times that it has no plans to extend opening hours for now.

The ICA declined comment when asked if there were talks with its Johor counterpart to ease the situation for lorry drivers.

In a statement yesterday, the ICA said that traffic through the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints is expected to be heavy over the coming Good Friday long weekend.

For departures, the build-up is expected to start from Thursday evening and for arrivals, traffic is expected to be heavy on Sunday and Monday.

The best way to avoid the congestion is to adjust travel plans and avoid the peak periods, it said.

carolynq@sph.com.sg

diothman@sph.com.sg