YOURSAY ‘A dented bumper, at most, and she lost her temper.’

Road rage woman says sorry, seeks empathy

A.A.: There are a few important lessons to learn from this incident. In the first instance, the gentleman was in the wrong in the sense that he had accidentally hit the car of the woman.

The first lesson is that being in the right does not give us the right to be mad and to over-react to the wrong done to us. The woman could have potentially worsened the situation if the gentleman did not have the wisdom to resolve the matter calmly and peacefully.

Violence gives rise to more violence, which gives rise to even more. The second lesson here is that the vicious cycle of violence can be only be broken by acts of kindness.

Those who discriminate against people of another race would often justify their action by saying that the other race has discriminated against them, not realising that this would only give rise to further mutual discrimination.

This is an eye for an eye. Breaking such a vicious cycle is what turning the other cheek is all about.

Let's not read too much into this incident. It is a case of a road bully who overacted in an extremely disproportionate manner to a minor scratch on her car.

The road bully happened to be a Malay female and the bullied victim an elderly Chinese gentleman who accidentally hit the back of her car.

In Facebook, Malaysians of all races had expressed their disgust at the road bully. Some Malay Malaysians had apologised to the gentleman taking into account that the bully is a Malay.

Their apologies are not necessary as the behaviour of the bully has less to do with her race than her upbringing.

Lamborghini: It is not the rehearsed lines but the unexpected events and our reaction to them that show up our true character or lack of it.

Siti Fairrah Asyikin Kamaruddin (aka Kiki), you have shown that you are actually a mean person who is so easily provoked.

Repent and strengthen your self-control before you do greater harm to yourself and other unfortunate human beings that cross your path.

Ex-PJ: I hate to think of what would have happened if she was injured in the accident. A dented bumper, at most, and she lost her temper.

Would she have behaved differently if it was an old Malay man? Sim Siang Hong behaved as a real gentleman with a lot of class.

CucuMalaysia: She was so consumed by anger and continued hitting the car with the heavy steering wheel lock. I couldn't help but pray that the uncle keeps a safe distance from her.

At the end of the video , it was a relief to see that her madness didn't cause her to do more stupid and unforgiving acts such as causing hurt to the wise tolerant uncle.

Gunnerrun: Kiki tugged the old man's collar, grabbed his keys, whacked the uncle's car bonnet with his steering lock multiple times, accusing him of intentionally banging into her car saying she had earlier seen him wanting to do that, then kept barking at him saying he thought "he was better than us" because he was Chinese, called him stupid, demanded RM2,000 from him there and then, said something negative again about the uncle being Chinese and all but was muffled towards the end.

All this happening with her parents standing by and saying nothing. She has since appeared on ntv7 making apologies, saying that short video clip had ruined her life, that her car was a birthday gift to herself and she had to work hard to earn money for the car.

I think the damage control she is attempting is too late... to me, it's just crocodile tears.

Casey: "To err is human; to forgive, divine," said Alexander Pope.

Having been on the road for sufficiently long time, we heard of and we experienced road rages, though the extent of violence differs. Temper flies for many reasons; but at fault or otherwise, we almost always regret to be caught in such a situation.

Just not too long ago, I overtook another car some distance from a corner and stopped at a gas station for refilling. The driver was obviously not amused, and he pulled his car up, alighted from it and confronted me with abusive words.

When I tried to reason, he hit me on the face without any warning. We beat each other up before we went on our separate way.

Neither of us lodge a report, for I'm sure neither of us had wanted that. It equally occurred to me that the poor man could have had a bad day which had set him in a foul mood.

But racial overtone is something else. It is a failure of the society. For the moral fibre of society and the values it subscribes to is much influenced by the quality and agenda of the government.

Unfortunately in our case, the government promotes and condones bigotries.

Turvy: We should show restraint, refuse to make this racial, forgive the woman for her bad behaviour and emulate the impeccable conduct of Uncle Sim.

If we did all this, perhaps we may teach this government a thing or two about what we are as a people.

Moral of the story in road bully vs uncle

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