Singapore ranks No. 1 for best roads in the world, here's what some local drivers really think

By now, it should not come as a surprise that Singapore typically crushes the competition in many world rankings.

And so it did, in a recent list of best roads around the world, where Singapore came in — you guessed it — first.

It scored 9.44 over 10 points in terms of its road quality in a global study by Zutobi, which also took into account the number of road deaths and the relative size of the road network.

Zutobi, an online driver education resource, also obtained some of its data on road quality from earlier studies in The Global Economy.

According to the ranking, Singapore had the lowest road traffic deaths at 1.69 per 100,000 people.

What's worth mentioning is that Singapore is the only country among the 59 countries studied to score above 9 points, with second-placed Netherlands obtaining a score of 8.62.

Others among the top five in descending order include Switzerland (8.58), Japan (8.41) and Denmark (7.59).

Conversely, looking at the worst roads in the world, Kuwait came up tops — or dead last — depending on how you look at it.

It had the lowest road quality score of 1.33 points, possibly due to its high number of road traffic deaths — the highest in the list — at 19 per 100,000 people.

One may also want to be cautious when driving in Costa Rica (2.24), Georgia (2.33) and Panama (2.55).

Surprisingly, New Zealand's (NZ) roads were fifth-worst at 2.93 points.

According to Zutobi, a contributing factor to NZ's poor showing (notwithstanding the many winding and narrow mountain roads) was the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake which destroyed a large section the country's biggest road.

Singaporean drivers, however, were far from joyful when it came to the nation's latest achievement.

Some left comments on the Land Transport Authority's Facebook post commenting on that report, with netizens saying that the state of some of our roads leaves much to be desired. 

One posted: "Come to Jurong Island Highway, experience it. Has the "BEST ROAD" nationwide.... Dry crack road, patchwork, uneven roads, poor(ly) maintained pedestrian pathways."

One even thought Malaysia's North-South highway fared better than our Pan-Island Expressway.

But for one Hardwarezone forum member, the problems we face on the roads appear to be user-generated.

And if you're wondering how our closest neighbour fared, the answer is — not that great (but still better than NZ and Argentina).

Malaysia ranked 12th from the bottom at 3.32 points, pipping countries such as the United Arab Emirates (3.23) and Saudi Arabia (3.11).

The Malaysian government however, has come out to rebut the report, calling it inaccurate and misleading.

It cited another study published by Utasan Malaysia on Aug 10 which ranked Malaysia's road quality among the 21 best roads in the world.

Thanks to the efforts of this Malaysian assemblyman Sim Chon Siang perhaps?

candicecai@asiaone.com