Saturday, October 07, 2006

Let The Killing Begin

(Adam. Ready to cruise for the coming festive holidays. 10 kph slower of course. Notice the maniacal grin?)







Deepavali. Hari Raya Aidil Fitri. Christmas. New Year. Chinese New Year. The annual culling season is about to begin. The body bags are laid out in readiness. The meat wagons are fuelled and ready to rush out to collect the carcasses off the slaughter house tarmac. Imams, priests and monks practise their funeral chants. Families prepare for the mourning which they know is inevitable.

The nation looks forward to the day when the culling practice will end. When the dumb, the reckless, the ill-maintained, the badly designed will be totally annihilated and the whole country will be populated by those who deserve to be alive.

Innocents will be culled along with the guilty. The nation will mourn them as martyrs. The statisticians will refer to them as collateral damage. They will be forgotten. The blood will fuel change.

Huh!!!??? Eh? Sorry, sorry, sorry. I was just reading the newspaper reports about the reduction of speed limit on federal and state roads for the coming festive season “balik kampung” rush. My mind suddenly wandered off into this grim idea for a fictional horror story.

Fictional horror story? Not really. It is very real. Each year the death toll on Malaysian roads continue to rise during the mad holidays rush. And each time the horrors occur statements are made. Politicians put on their sad faces and make speeches. Promises are made to make things better only to be forgotten with the next day’s headlines. Ops this or that will be launched. And yet the bodies continue to pile up the statistics.

So this year the major attempt at reducing this needless tragedy is to reduce the speed limit on federal and state roads by 10 kilometers per hour. From 90 kph to 80 kph. Pardon me if I don’t stand up and applaud. Actually, the whole thing is quite laughable.

Since he took over as the Inspector-General of Police I have admired Tan Sri Musa’s optimism. He’s got a big job ahead and he’s really gung ho about achieving what his predecessors have failed to do. He vowed a fight against corruption in the police force. He promised to weed out all the weak elements in the force. He said that police personnel who do not do their job will be punished. And no favoritism will be shown. After a while I tended to believe him or at least give the man the benefit of the doubt la. That is, until he made the suggestion to reduce the speed limit on federal and state roads in order to reduce the number of fatal road accidents during festive periods. Ah so.

Remember the day that big news came out? I am sure you do. First, the one-time people’s hero turned golf-playing Mr. Establishment, Lee Lam Thye came out and said it won’t work and might even cause more accidents because people might get bored with the slow speed and do more stupid things on the roads. Then the Prime Minister himself came out and said that it was a great idea, Of course after that everybody nodded their heads la. Ya, ya, ya, good idea.

But I am thinking. How is 10 kph slower for a couple of weeks going to make an iota of difference to the death toll?

How are you going to get to slow down, motorists who break every traffic rule in the book on a daily basis.

How are you going to get to slow down, motorists who got their driving licences simple because they’d learned to start the engine, put the car in gear and go forward and reverse. Okay la, some of them even learned to park.

How are you going to get to slow down, motorists who run red lights right in front of traffic policemen.

How are you going to get to slow down, motorists who use the left lane of a major expressway as their personal parking lane.

How are you going to get to slow down, motorists who think practising lane discipline using the turn indicators are things only 'pondans' do.

I could go on but I think you get the drift. These “authorities” continue to come up with their “brilliant” ideas. They’re either thinking we’re really stupid enough to believe what they say. Or they are sadists who get pleasure from pushing their tokkok in our faces.

Right. Make the announcement. 10 kph slower from this Thursday. YESSIR! All Malaysian motorists will obey the order.

Well, maybe they will. They will slow down from 140 kph to 130 kph. So there. Speed limit? Ya, ya, ya got. My souped up, giant chrome exhaust pipe-d kap cai/Kancil/Satria/Waja/Gen2 can reach speeds of 120/150/180/200/220 kph. But that’s it la. That’s the limit. Cannot go faster already.

Actually, when you think about it, for many, many years now the government has not been able to do anything about the appalling habits of Malaysian drivers. Except to churn out more and more bad drivers each year. And launching more Operasi this and that to keep us entertained or irritated. So don’t hold your breath. Nothing new is going to happen this year either.

Okay, enough of this. Go service and tune up your your weapons...I mean vehicles. The culling starts in two weeks. Enjoy.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Notice the maniacal grin" seems appropriate with the label on his little bike :)

Anonymous said...

cough cough cough haaacck ptooi!

ah.what? malaysian road got speed limit meh? is it the same number as the API?

;-)

The Unladen Swallow said...

About four or five yeards back before I got my license, my Dad remarked on how if he were to be in charge of the JPJ, he would make sure that he would be very strict in his ways of passing drivers and failing them as well. Naturally, I opposed him because, hey, I wanted to drive very much at the time, but yet now I could not help but agree with him. There are times when you cannot simply put the blame on the government, and you have to stop, think and tell the people that they too are at fault. Forgot the badly maintained roads (which will always be there, digging or no) and crappy traffic systems and just look at the way most Malaysians drive or ride their bloody bikes. It's a battle for survival, one way or another.

baggie said...

Walau wey... how to drive at 90kmh wor.... highway somemore. Will get darn sleepy and bored. Just makes things even worst. More cars will be on the high way, cause everyones driving at 90kmh, semua org belom sampai tempat destinasi. Then there will be the horrifying jams at almost all tolls, this time even longer queues. Then people start using emergency lanes, causing it even worst (more profitable for the police, konon nak saman) for the motorists.

Dunno lah... dont think this idea would do any better.

Anonymous said...

But the highway limit stays @110kmph noh? Well, again and again my government makes me feel like banging my head on the wall. Don't they know that the cause of accidents are not fast - speeding cars? It is the differencial of speed? I think if they insist that the max speed limit at 90kmph fine! But the minimum speed limit should also be also 90kmph!! Grrr... So, no one will be force to overtake the kura kura who is drivng 60kmph on the fast lane, then brake after overtaking hence traffic jam! Accelerate-brake-gas-brake-gas-brake...

Unknown said...

Reduce speed limit will cause more traffic jam and may happen even more road accidents. Drivers will fall asleep when driving in slow motion. They should improve the road safety than reduce the speed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a speed driver and I don't like speeding.

EmilyDaddy said...

Actually, the speed reduction is a brilliant idea for the police. Have you forgotten about the recent news about the police force not getting any increase salary?
So with the speed reduction , you will get many more road blocks and the standard question "Awak tahu tak speed limit ini jalan? Sudah kurang 10 kp/h. So, apa macam mau settle?"
This is what they call kill two birds with one stone (no pun intended)

backStreetGluttons said...

maybe the police should put instant 3 minutes plastic ( or whatever lah ) road humps on the roads for 2 weeks at selected spots to slow people down ?

This one I think can reduce the balik kampong culling I am sure !

hahaha

Anonymous said...

fidel castro, bill gates, pak lah and a mat rempit were travelling on the orient express. fidel took out a cuban cigar, lit it and took a puff before throwing away a perfectly good cigar thru the window. the rest were shocked. seeing this fidel said ' there are so many cigars in cuba that i wont be able to finish smoking them all in my lifetime'

not to be outdone, bill gates takes a US 100 bill, sneezes into it, wipes his nose and throws it away. looking at the rest, who were amazed at this act, he said 'i have so much money that i wont be able to finish my fortune in 7 lifetimes........'

in the spirit of malaysia boleh and vision 2020, pak lah grabs the mat rempit and throws him out of the window.....................

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, not sure what the fuss is. Let the powers that be decide ( ie carry out their role/job)and we will find out after the festivities when the "results" will speak for itself. Give them the benefit of the doubt. As for drivers who have now to drive 10kph slower, well who are we kidding? Prior to the rule, people drive 120kph in 110kph stretches, 90 kph in 80 kph stretches. NOBODY followed the speed limit, I should know as I always do, and I am continuously being harrassed and overtaken by cars zooming pass at definitely 20kphplus official speed limit, and having the nerve to look back and pass me a murderous look, as though I am a wimp for sticking to the limit!!! The accidents we had on the roads were probably these guys who may have rammed into dividers,buses, lamp posts, etc while they were busy not looking infront and trying to kill the driver of the car they had just overtaken with a good hard, long, angry look and after that C-RRR-A-SHH...Kabbammmmm!!!!

Anonymous said...

Well... ppl only take cares when they sees an accident happend in from of them, and thats for the first hours. After that its back to the same old schumacer wannabe (wan change to Alonso Wanabee oledi)

So we should get khairy to send out his platoon of rempits and Crash boom bang every now and then, just to remind ppl how Road Kills.. and death is just a sec away.

Okie ~ :P

baggie said...

ARGHHHHHHHHH~!!! I went Penang for holidays on the 21st (1.30am left KL) and I reached Nibong Tebal at 6.15am (!@$&#%#$%#)... people did actually cruised at 90kmh on the fast lane... It was so freakin' slow and had indeed caused jams and accidents along the way... It was a total bad idea to implement this so called 'road safety campaign'

Cuddly Family said...

I see the polis have given themselves a pat on the back for the reduced number of deaths (but what about injuries etc), oh yay, well done. It's easy to be cynical I guess.. Esp nowadays, water price naik, so everything else also naik (in our case school fees lagi naik), mansion also naik ;) We now have "haze season" which apparently next year may last till feb of the following year.. and at 1997 levels.

what next y'all.. what next?! Just vented on my blog but dunnolah.. I love my country to bits, but kinda wonder what kind of country am I passing down to my kids? (besides the health probs that is hehe)