Last week, driving to work, I saw an "AWAS" sign, placed on a very curved road for the obvious reason, was knocked over and left lying helpless and pathetic in the middle of the road. I had to laugh. A sign telling road users to becareful was knocked over by a careless driver. It reminded me of the many times (in the distant past) I had seen HUGE piles of rubbish right under signs that said "Dilarang Membuang Sampah. Denda RM500". Funny!
The public buses I take to get to my work place stop in the midst of going around a roundabout to pick up or drop off passengers. Really funny. I've also encountered a driver who stopped the bus in the middle of the road, left the bus (with the engine still running and all the passengers bewildered), strolled into a mamak shop and strolled back out a couple of minutes later carrying a plastic bag-ful of teh tarik ais, then nicely climbed back into his driver's seat on the bus and continued the journey. Not bad huh.
I haven't been to many places outside of Malaysia, but I bet that some of these things one could only get to see here. Still funny? After a while, they're no more mere laughing matter.
Continuing the talk about road users - many times, when driving, I encountered impatient drivers that swerve out from behind and accelerate whenever I slowed down to let somebody (another car or pedestrians) pass. Once, I slowed to a stop to let a mother carrying a child and holding the hands of another to cross the road, and one of those impatient people was directly behind me, and did exactly what he shouldn't have done - swerved out of the lane and accelerated forward. He nearly rammed into the woman and her children. If I were a six-foot tall bully with muscles like Superman, I'd get out of my car, break his windows and break his nose. A couple of months ago, it happened that I was trying to cross a road, a kind driver slowed down to let me, and another accelerated from behind, only to hit the brakes when I was in sight of the #!$*& driver. If I'd died that day, I'd haunt him for the rest of his life. Really.
What else? Drivers running the red lights, driving and parking wherever they pleased, bullying bikers and Kancils... Where are the policemen when we need them? (Why, they're always up and about - taking bribes from offenders. Shushhh! You're not supposed to say that! Wanna end up in jail? Oops. Sorry.)
And BRAVO to columnist Goh Ban Lee of The Sun newspaper (got my free copy from KTM station! heheh), for he mentioned about the vast occurrences of petty traffic offences (which add up to be a BIG problem) and public littering, and how these remain unresolved, whilst the government wants policemen to spy on couples behaving "indecently" in public parks. *eyes rolling* But please - don't say anything about bribes. Nobody wants to go to jail.
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