Malaysians are such bad drivers, a friend once reasoned, because we are a nation of subconsciously repressed people. Our lives are so extraordinarily regulated and "processed" that the only possible way of expressing creative freedom is on the road, he once said vehemently.

Apparently, the freedom to drive as haphazardly as we normally do belies a latent need to express our thoughts and emotions, in such ways that we are all too often denied in other facets of life.

So, according to my friend, Mr Proletarian Shrink, that explains why most of us metamorphose into lamppost-levelling-red-light-running-pedestrian-scaring speed freaks.

That's why we're such atrocious drivers. That's why we drive too fast, never give way to other people and kill ourselves in the name of festive spirit on the road every year. Yes, we tend to add more than just a little excitement to the tranquil lives of traffic policemen.

Not entirely a bad line of reasoning, I must say. Now whilst my friend isn't actually Sigmund Freud, he does seem to have a point. In a society that encourages things like self-censorship and inhibits intellectual discourse, well, something has to give. And when the levee does break, it's usually not a good sight to behold.

So, we take it out on each other when we're on the road!

Unfortunately, the price we end up paying is an expensive and rather needless one. On behalf of the Rahmans, I ended up with RM700 worth of traffic violations to pay on Labour Day, some of which dated back to 1999!

Depressing

As one of the many who queued up to pay traffic summons that day, I find it both agreeable and depressing that the police have decided to extend the deadlines for payment.

Agreeable, because two weeks is a more sensible time-frame for the Malaysian population to fulfil their debts (And to think that you actually gave me ONE day to settle the score? Come on, man, get real!)

Depressing, because I felt like a fool queuing up on Labour Day, when other people stayed at home with their families or played Counterstrike until sundown. I felt plain stupid because, of course, the authorities would at some point give in to public opinion and extend the deadlines, and people like me would have to go down in history as 'Malaysia's Dumbest Guinea Pigs' since the British tried to sell the idea of a Malayan Union to us, not too far back.

But that's not the ambition of this essay; I don't want you to end up hating anyone, or blaming anyone for anything. Rather, I just hope that you will understand my previously untold grief by the time you log off the Internet

Why? Because I spent about five or six hours holed up in the Tun H S Lee police station, queuing up to pay my traffic summons (you tend to lose track of time when you're queuing up for hours, it's a bit like Alice in Wonderland). Now, it takes two to tango, and I will shoulder the blame for taking so long to clear my debts. But you don't really have a choice when Daddy asks you to pay the summons or don't you ever come back, you rascal.

Six hours in purgatory

I spent five or six hours in purgatory, my punishment for speeding, for parking in the wrong places, and generally forgetting all the rules I learnt in driving school. Yes, I deserved it all. But there were a few things that happened that I felt like I did not deserve, things that could have, should have , been avoided, had there been a more concrete game plan to the whole fandango.

At the risk of sounding impetuous, I concede the following observations:

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  • There were lanes for queuing, but those that snaked their way through the drenched courtyard were reminiscent of secondary school canteen lines, like a bloated orgy of jostling adolescent hooligans waiting for their turn to buy stale nasi lemak and tepid teh tarik . Of course the crowd booed and screamed bloody murder every time a Smart Alec tried to cut the queue, of course the policemen pulled them away every time, and of course there was some semblance of civility, but that's not the point here, is it?

  • There seemed to be no priority given for senior citizens or those with physical disabilities; as depressing as it sounds, old folks had to queue, just the same. I found it painful to look over my shoulder, every once in a while, and still see a wizened old man patiently wiping the sweat off his brow, muttering obscenities in the wind. Yes, optimistically, this should have gone into consideration during the planning phase, at least. Lanes could have, should have , been allotted for senior citizens to facilitate a more stress-free transaction for all parties. (I have heard that newspapers reported differently, that there were actual lanes given to old folks, but I didn't see any of that in the Tun H.S. Lee station).

  • There was a genuine lack of helpfulness. Of course, I didn't really expect a bunch of nannies present, but the least they could have done was appear to be of assistance to us bad-driver types. There were many exceptions to the rule, of course, many genuinely obliging and considerate cops, but most of the others treated us like they didn't much care about creating a negative PR backlash. Instead, I felt an overwhelming presence of spitefulness and aggravation, like they were masking self-satisfaction at watching us grovelling like common criminals awaiting clemency. No, definitely not the best way to reach out to the "hearts and minds of the people" (pop trivia: Sir Gerald Templer coined that phrase during the Emergency, don't you know?)

  • This is getting old, but one of the things that are most apparent is the clear lack of planning and capacity for crowd control. Reports that the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) was called in to control unruly mob behaviour depresses me, because it's depressing to hear that policemen cannot even control things in their own backyards. The orange cones and yellow police tape seemed to materialise out of nowhere at around 11am, just after they closed the gates and herded us over to the summons counters. Pretty nonchalant, for a professional law enforcement agency, no?

    • A howl of protests from the people outside the gates at 10.30am signalled a turning point in the day's events; the policemen had abruptly closed the main gates, to the obvious frustration of the crowd  you could see people turning to their "neighbours" for small talk, you could see Malays, Chinese and Indians intermingling so naturally it felt like a Merdeka rally, or something.

    But of course, what do you do when you have to spend the whole day, the whole of Labour Day, stranded in a police station with a few hundred strangers? You talk to people, you make ten-minute friends, and you complain, complain and complain.

    As the day wore on, and the crowd steadily grew more anxious and uncontrollable, I found myself doing strange things. I found myself surreptitiously dreaming of ways to keep myself in check the next time I sat behind the wheel. Yes, I'd modify my speedometer to hit the redline at 80km/h, and rig my car with a speed-limiting mechanism that would trigger the alarm system at 69km/h, and enable engine cut-off at 75km/h, thus reducing the probability of running foul of the law ever again.

    Yes, I'd devise an audio playback system that would warn me, in one of those sexy-female-launch-control-James-Bond-movie voices, if I were in danger of overtaking someone recklessly, or about to make an illegal U-turn. Or even add one of those fancy LCD monitors that would project a holographic image of a menacing moustached traffic policeman with Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses. Or, well, you get the idea

    Yes, we were vehemently punished outside the legal system inside a police station. At some point during my hours of waiting, I had felt like a Muscovite awaiting his daily stale bread and sausage ration, or an East Timor war-refugee waiting for "processing".

    Many lessons had been learnt by the time I left the police station, precisely RM700 poorer, although none the worse for wear. But some lessons, admittedly, could have been taught differently, and with less intimidating methods.

    But if you ever go fishing, just remember that you can't catch all the fish in the river, no, just the little suckers who end up taking the bait...

    SUFFIAN ABDUL RAHMAN is a 22-year-old freelance writer currently studying Mass Communications at Help Institute, Damansara.