APPALLED BY LACK OF CIVIC SENSE
MALAYSIA’S aim to attain developed nation status should focus not only on economic growth, but also on political and social transformation.
I am disgusted to see some “ugly” Malaysians’ indifference to laws and social norms.
Stroll in an affluent residential area and you can see dog poop littering the roads and sidewalks. Don’t pet owners have any regard for pedestrians?
My neighbour’s cat often does its “business” in my garden. The other morning I returned home
from my walk and found the cat perched on top of my car like a maharajah! No wonder there are scratches all over the car.
And look at the rubbish strewn all over the place. These perpetrators expect City Hall or Alam Flora workers to clean up the mess.
Youngsters ride motorcycles recklessly in residential areas without helmets. Many of them are schoolchildren who most likely do not have a motorcycle licence. Not to be outdone by these schoolchildren are equally negligent motorists who ignore pedestrian crossings at the traffic lights.
Recently, while crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing, two young women on a motorcycle beat the traffic lights and barely missed hitting me by a few feet. When I called out to them, the pillion rider flashed a vulgar sign.
Once I saw an agitated motorcyclist getting off his machine at the traffic lights and smashing his helmet on the windscreen of a tourist coach. Apparently, the coach driver had honked at the motorcyclist to reproach him for reckless riding.
The police should charge these lawbreakers in court and request the magistrate to send them for psychoanalysis.
Take a trip on the light rail transit (LRT) in Kuala Lumpur and you can observe the behaviour of our youngsters. Shamelessly, they occupy seats reserved for senior citizens, pregnant ladies and people with disabilities. I reported it to a Rapid KL employee, who responded by informing me to tell these commuters that some seats are reserved.
Rapid KL should have officers boarding the LRT and advising commuters about reserved seats.
At one time we faced the problem of drug addiction, today it is the cellphone obsession.
I’m aghast to see motorists texting with one hand as the other holds the steering wheel. Motorcyclists do the same. Even pedestrians crossing the road are focused on their phones instead of looking at the traffic.
The key question is, who is to be blamed for such apathy towards these errant behaviours? The authorities or parents? Or has our education system failed to inculcate values in our children?