Back in action!

Sigh... after a almost two weeks of exams, I'm quite looking forward to a one-week self-taken break. No... not a holiday, but at least a week without thinking of studies and things like that.

OK, so I'm back already, for just a while. Just wanna keep you people up-to-date about the goings-on. Well... *sniff* *sniff*, I'm currently down with a flu and cough. Not a nice time at all to fall sick, especially during or approaching exams! Bother! The weather has been changing so dramatically and suddenly. At one moment the sun shines as if it has not been shining for years, and then next it starts to rain as if it's almost the end of the world. Haha...no, I don't really mean that literally. What I really mean is that the weather is very unpredictable nowadays. It is the change of weather that now a lot of people are getting ill.

How are my exams, you might ask? Well, to me not everything was good. I'm quite sure that I won't do well for my History paper (I dreaded it most). I could score well maybe for Mathematics, English, EST (English for Science and Technology), Malay, Additional Mathematics and Physics and now I'm doubting if I could do well for Chemistry, too. I also wonder if I could get a high mark for Biology. Hmmm... trial exams are generally more difficult than I've expected.

Well, now to other matters. I'm quite annoyed by the way certain people behave, especially on the road. I quite agree with The Star Paper, which conducted a survey last year. They reported that Malaysians are nonetheless a very polite group of people, but are surprised at their behaviour that they display on the road. Really, I agree that generally a lot of Malaysians are at their worst while driving especially. Let me make it clear that I'm in no way condemning anybody. I'm only pointing out that there are such people in our country and the number is growing. They are one of the major reasons why road accidents are still on the rise.

I have a few examples. I must admit that I'm not a speed fan. I prefer to drive slowly, but not too slow. I would normally drive at a speed of 60 km/h. On the highway, I rarely cross over 80 km/h although the speed limit of the highway is 120 km/h. I know that I drive slower than a lot of other drivers and this is something I dislike most: impatient drivers. Let us say that there are cars in front of me and the distance between my car and the car in front of me is rather far. Those impatient drivers behind me would always attempt to overtake me just to stay in front of me. I just can't understand what these drivers are thinking. How fast can these drivers be? After all, I can still see you right in front of me.

The worst part of all is this. Today, I was driving home from school. As usual, I drove at a speed of 60 km/h (traffic was quite heavy) and less. One considerably young man in some salesman suit was right behind me in a Toyota Altis while I was in an old but solid (hehehe) Volvo. I was turning into a junction when I heard someone honked. My father who was next to me didn't respond so I thought I was hearing things. Then I heard it again. I looked behing at the mirror and saw that the Altis tried to overtake me at the JUNCTION! He honked at me so that I will stop and let him pass! WHAT! Stop at the roadside and let him pass? And with so many cars around? Sure, I could stop and let him pass. But I wonder when I could resume my journey home. I decided to ignore him and continued at my usual speed. After all, I'd done nothing wrong for you to honk at me! When I reach a double-lane road, I stayed at the left lane so that he could overtake me on the right. While he was overtaking, I gave him two honks. Just to show who means business. Some courtesy this was! I wonder where he was rushing to. To hell?

The agony of it all is that most drivers, especially those with what we call "lesen kopi-O" (bought driver's license), are ignorant about traffic laws. You can see people going at a slow pace when the lights are green but when they turn yellow, they accelerate and then cross the traffic lights when they are red. An interesting pack of people, right?

And while you're driving on the left lane (Adam, I hope you remember that we have to drive in the left lane if we drive slowly. The right lane is for overtaking cars.), everything should go just well. What could be more frightening than someone sideswiping you not from the right, but from your left? That is utterly wrong from the point of view of the law. You can only overtake from your right. Overtaking from the left is VERY dangerous because the driver whom you're overtaking may not be able to see you. A terrible collision may happen. And that is exactly what we have here.

When I say that our local drivers are an impatient lot, I'm speaking of nothing but the truth. At the main road near my house, there is a junction turning left that will lead you to the city centre. Unfortunately, the junction is located at the top of a hill and there is only one lane for that particular junction. When there are many cars, traffic jams will always occur. Traffic flows extremely slow. There are many drivers who would be patient enough to wait and queue up at the line, but most will prefer to do otherwise. They will overtake a lot of cars and when they approach the junction, they attempt to slip in between cars to stay at the lane where they will turn at the junction. Some drivers just slip in without thinking about the cars behind and when the car behind isn't able to stop on time, CRASH! Seriously, most of the accidents that occur on the main road near my house happen at that particular junction because of some inconsiderate drivers who want to overtake and they do so dangerously without thinking about other people's safety. What could be more annoying than this? When will these people ever learn?

Some people think that just because they have a beautiful or big car, they can bully the smaller ones. That is exactly what I see on Malaysian roads! Sometimes we just cannot compare the road conditions in foreign countries with our local roads. In The Netherlands, for example (because I travelled there before), I noticed that vehicles would always let pedestrians cross the road first before they resume their journey. Here, I see the other way around. No vehicles would let any pedestrians cross. Vehicles especially those bigger than a lot of other cars (like four-wheel drives etc., not talking about you Jared!) I see always think that they are so great they don't need to follow the rules. In the end, those who are victimised are normally the smaller vehicles.

Sigh... the mentality of such drivers are still not good. There is still a lot of work needed to improve the attitude of Malaysians on the road. I doubt if their attitude can be improved at all. The truth is that a lot of Malaysians have "first class facilities, but third class mentality". How true!