Mad man on the loose!

OK, this is a sound warning to those who drive on the PLUS North-South Highway and perhaps even to those who are driving. I assure you that you don't want to be in my situation on the road when you're travelling at 90 km/h.

I was driving home from school at around 2.25 pm today and I decided to use the highway for a change instead of the trunk road which I use almost every day.

When I was turning into the highway, a big lorry was in front of me. At the highway, I sped up from 30 km/h to 70 km/h and switched my gear from 3 to 4 (I'm a manual car driver, OK?). I then immediately overtook that lorry and seeing that there is a speeding car behind me, I sped up again to 80 or 85 km/h and punched the "Overdrive" button on the gearstick. (NB: The Overdrive button is like your ordinary 5th gear. In my Volvo, there is no 5th gear but an Overdrive gear whereby you can just press it without pressing the clutch of the car. By pressing the Overdrive gear button, you actually switch from the 4th gear to the Overdrive gear automatically and then continue to gain more speed.) I continued driving at around 95 km/h or 100 km/h.

Noticing that the car behind me would like to go even faster, I decided to put on my signal and went into the left lane for the other driver to overtake me on the right. I then slowed down to about 85 km/h with my Overdrive gear on. As I drove, I saw a figure of a man walking against the flow of traffic at the side of the road. Not taking any chances in case he was drunk, I tried to slow down my car to 80 km/h (but I still had my Overdrive gear on, which I should have changed back to the 4th gear!), looked at the mirror and prepared myself in case of any emergency. Suddenly, that man extended his arms towards me and lunged forward into the road! I quickly put on my right-hand signal and went into the right lane immediately and quickly drove off. I then looked at the cars behind me at the mirror. After I passed that mad man, he went forward again towards the van behind me and did the same thing! That driver of the van quickly swerved to the right side of the road and sped off too. Then that insane man did something even more dangerous. He crossed the road when there was an oncoming lorry! I couldn't see what happened after that because the view was then blocked by the dividers.

He extended his hands towards me as if he wanted to embrace me, but more likely I think he wanted to embrace the moving car which was travelling at 80 km/h! When he saw that I didn't want him to embrace my car, he tried to give the van a big bear-hug, which was obviously refused.

I'm beginning to think that this mad man must have somehow escaped from Hospital Bahagia Tanjung Rambutan (note to overseas readers: it's an asylum). The people who work in that asylum must have miscounted their patients and missed this one. Hmmph...

So, drivers, watch out! Be forewarned! This can happen anytime, anywhere.