It was a very hot Tuesday noon, after coming back from KL heading back to my office in PJ at about 2 pm. I was using the Sprint Expressway.

Of course, to avoid the toll, I took the left stretch, where you have to bypass Phileo Damansara. And suddenly I saw this Waja going left and right, and finally stopped on the right lane. It’s a 2-lane-stretch heading to the traffic light. The Waja driver switched on the emergency signal. As I bypass the “grounded” Waja, I saw the lady driver coming down and check her left tyre. I wind down and asked, ” Okie ah, Auntie?” She’s in her early forties.

I also don’t know what she mumbled…must be too frightened. I stopped my car in front of the Waja and got down to see if I can do anything to move it out of the way. The vehicles at the back are starting to pile-up already. It won’t be long before this Waja is going to cause a major bottleneck and gets reported by the Radio Station.

I was shock to see it’s not just an ordinary punctured case; the entire left tyre has been torn out and was detached from the rim of the car. (Pardon my car vocabulary; I am not very good at labeling cars.) It was Silverstone tyres, I am glad I use Falken. Judging from the bad condition of the torn tyre, I don’t think that auntie can drive it all the way to the petrol station some 2 kilometers away.

Without wasting much time, I started jacking the car up and begin the tyre changing process. This is when the attitudes of Malaysian drivers start to amuse me.

A Kancil drove pass us, and a smart-looking, well-trimmed Indian driver wind down the window and started shouting,” Woi, Can’t you see that you are blocking the road! There’s a petrol station in front lah! Dumb ass!” And sped off.

On and off, you can see the drivers of the vehicles making those faces saying “You IDIOT! Get out of the way!”, and blowing off their horns venting their impatience. Even the Mat Salleh drivers showed the same symptoms.

Then there’s one van that passes by and shouted “Mau minyak!? Mau Minyak?” It was pretty obviously he was trying to take advantage of the situation, smiling with that dollar-signed-face.

Fortunately, after a while 2 road sweepers passed by and was kind enough to lend their emergency cones to direct the traffic behind the stalled Waja. They immediately offered to change the spare tyre.

All these while, we continued to be cursed by passing-by vehicles.

It took about 20 minutes and the Waja is good and ready to go. The auntie then opened her wallet and hesitantly asked “How much do you want ahh?” I told her that I don’t change tyres for a living. Don’t know man, I just felt a bit insulted, hahaha…

Then I told her you are better off paying those 2 road sweepers, and she gave them a RM 10 note. I then gave her my contact number, and told her that if she needs a tow truck, just give me a buzz. I also told her to pass me her contact since my friend has a workshop that’s just nearby. Her face immediately changed, like I was out to take advantage of her. I never thought I looked like a tow truck guy…Can’t blame her also, only tow truck drivers come down to “help” during situations like these…

Instinctively, not wanting her to get the wrong idea, I just said,” Okie, up to you, just don’t drive too fast with that spare tyre and try to get your own tow service to tow your car safely to the workshop”. With that, I got into my car, and drive off.

As you can see, more people would rather swear and curse that stupid dumb-ass stalled vehicle on the road. Maybe they thought by swearing and cursing, it will help the Waja to start moving out of the way. Some even tried to take advantage of other people’s crisis.

And that 2 road sweepers have shown more concern to the plight than any of the on-lookers. They could have continued sweeping their road and I am sure that they never expect to get anything out of it after helping that auntie.

Oh, yeah, and she never even said a word of thanks. I should have taken the RM 10.00.

• No related posts.