Life’s Little Jokes

Strangely enough a day after writing about Corruption in Malaysia, I got stopped by a ‘roadblock’ on MRR2 at about 1.30am.

It didn’t look particularly official and I don’t think they even had a speedtrap set-up, they were just fishing for bribes.

I thought this when I pulled up, but it was soon confirmed..

The first guy came to me…looked at my white face and walked of summoning his colleague (in BM of course) “Eh come here la, I don’t know what to say”.

Then another guy came over, then finally the more senior guy came up. Luckily I wasn’t going particularly fast anyway.

Eventually he managed to ask me how fast I was going…it was something like this..

Him: “Your licence?”
Me: (Passes him license)
Him: “International license?”
Me: “Yah”
Him: “You from where?”
Me: “Bandar Sri Damansara”
Him: “You er….”
Him: “You how?”
Him: “You er…how ah?”
Him: “You how long?”
Me: “Huh? Do you mean how fast was I going?”
Him: “Yah yah, how fast?”
Me: “Around 85-90km/h”
Him: “Speed here, 80km/h on bridge 60km/h”
Me: “Ok fine.”
Him: (Leaning into car) “So you want summon?”
Me: “Yeah sure, give me a summon”
Him: (Looking puzzled) “Er ok…”

Then he ciaoed, got on his bike and rode off.

I waited a while whilst another few officers inspected me, my car, my license and hung around, asked me some more stuff – mostly the same questions again. Where am I from, where am I going, how fast was I going, had I been drinking etc..

One even breathalyzed me.

And eventually said I can go, ‘last warning’.

They obviously were doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing and were just fishing for bribes.

So in the end I drove off without paying anything, why? Because I’d done nothing wrong.

Everyone else around me was paying their hard earned 50 bucks for no reason, other than to support corruption. When you pay the bribe you can’t be sure if they were really going to summon you or not.

Accept when you do wrong and pay via the proper channels, don’t let them push you around 🙂

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22 Responses to Life’s Little Jokes

  1. Mark November 9, 2007 at 2:01 pm #

    Wow, that is amazing. A true man of integrity. Way to go mate!

  2. Sharon November 9, 2007 at 2:46 pm #

    Dunno why but I was laughing my head off reading your post. “How long”???? Talk about L A M E. Bwahahaha.

  3. moons November 9, 2007 at 4:11 pm #

    Lol.. that is indeed funny, and good for you, its true that a lot of these are just fishing for bribes, and when you don’t offer any, after some time they just tell you to go off.

    Good job on that!

  4. Joanne Yeow November 9, 2007 at 4:22 pm #

    Good For You!!!! In actual fact, these cops are so hard-up for cash that they would even take whatever you have left in your wallet even if its less than RM10….
    However, I’ve found that if one were to stand her ground, they would usually let you off cos :-
    No.1 – It’s not worth wasting time on 1 puny stubborn motorist when there’s more fish to catch
    No.2 – Don’t want to do many paper work when the quota for issuing summons has been fulfilled at the begining of the month.
    So, that’s the sad state of our law enforcers in Malaysia. I’m definitely one of the small but hopefully growing, group of fed up taxpayers who refuses to pay these idiots.

  5. Angie Tan November 9, 2007 at 4:32 pm #

    Wow…

    Anyway, do check the online summons thing. My friend decided to “fight” some police but ended up getting a summons anyway at a much later date. :-S

  6. easyriderlovescs November 9, 2007 at 11:24 pm #

    These police checks are usually harmless, yes they do happen late at night, they are probably just routine checks.

    But if you are stopped by the police because you were speeding, it appears that most drivers would rather settle the summon on the spot than pay at the police station.

    In Australia the penalties for drink driving and speeding are severe.

  7. Kuzco November 10, 2007 at 1:19 am #

    I was once stopped at a roadblock on a midnight and the following conversation ensued:

    Police: “Dari mana? ” – Where did you come from?
    Me: “Dari belakang” – I came from behind(literally)
    Police: “Pergi mana?” Where are you headed?
    Me: “Nak pergi depan” To the front (literally)
    Police: “Ok jalan. ” Ok you may go.
    Me: “Thank you. “

  8. Terence Goh November 10, 2007 at 3:08 am #

    WHAT ??!?!? you did not contributed to the police retirement funds ?!?!?! shame on you tiger !!! yarrrrrrrr…..we are all pirates !!!

  9. wongkj November 10, 2007 at 1:13 pm #

    Good on ya, dude! I gotta admit though, the “last warning” part was pretty funny.

  10. Sabochii November 10, 2007 at 8:57 pm #

    hey i appreciate ur modesty…..cool….lemme tell u smth…once my bf(international student) was driving in the outskirts of Kl whn two police man stopped him n demanded for his licence, which he didn’t have with him at the moment. so so save his but he started fooling arnd with police n he finally made them beleive that the car sticker to enter the university represents his licence. seeing his license the uni gave him the sticker , so tht works for him in the roads as well…..now guess wht?? the stupid, Bodoh malaysian policeman beleived him n they were begging for an apology to stop him…..hahahaha….my witty bf n the stupid police who rn’t sure of their own laws…..sigh!

  11. kkjm November 10, 2007 at 11:34 pm #

    Kudos to you, bro!!!

  12. deriku November 11, 2007 at 4:17 pm #

    Way to go ST!

  13. David the squid November 12, 2007 at 1:52 am #

    admire your integrity. I’ve made a stand not to bribe too

  14. Darren November 12, 2007 at 12:26 pm #

    It happen to me too, when i was driving my friend’s car. They asked for my licence and ask me where i stay bla bla. But they did not summon me though.

  15. davidlian November 12, 2007 at 2:43 pm #

    I’ve had my fair share of such incidences as well. Unfortunately, because of my coloured face, they think I’d be more open for a bribe. It usually takes about 10 minutes of to-and-froing before they let me off with a ‘last warning’.

    The story that takes the cake is my brother’s – he refused to pay and finally, out of exasperation, they asked him “you Christian?” He said, “Ya”. End of story.

  16. ben November 12, 2007 at 11:18 pm #

    All these years I have been dutifully accepting and paying my summonses…

  17. julian November 13, 2007 at 6:23 pm #

    Thanks, an interesting story; and good for you:) My guess is they couldn’t book you for speeding because they had no proof of you speeding, because they had no speed trap. Which is why they didn’t want to give you a ‘saman’ – it would have meant they had to justify they were there. They were probably not meant to be on duty at all and doing some ‘extra time’.

  18. tomatoinc November 14, 2007 at 11:57 pm #

    i had a similar experience at MRR2, at the end of the flyover bridge, passing tmn connaught exit.

    police…

    Tidak Rasuah (no bribe)…yeah right…

  19. Mama BoK November 15, 2007 at 5:44 am #

    Wow..!! yer cool..!

  20. lex November 21, 2007 at 10:07 am #

    pulisman: you how long?

    ROFL

  21. Suet November 22, 2007 at 11:57 am #

    Grr! MRR2! Hunting grounds for bloody corrupted traffic police! Seriously if they needed more income, why pick this meagre-paying job anyway? They’re free to choose their own occupation so there’s no excuse for this corrupt behaviour.

    Once, my dad was stopped for passing a yellow light. Me and mom were in the car. He was stopped by THREE policemen coming to harrass him and threatening him with a summon. They asked him THRICE if he can afford the summon. At last, jaded Dad got out his wallet and paid them each RM10! Can you effing believe it. I was so mad at both him and the bleedin’ cops, if they can call themselves that. I mean, one shouldn’t accept bribes at all but to accept an RM10 bribe?! That’s plain unbelievable.

    Get a part time job or something. Yesh.

  22. a shutterasia fan August 15, 2008 at 12:27 pm #

    hahaha… those are Malaysia jokers….

    him : “You.. how long”…
    Tiger: “Errr… well… depending mood of desire…”

    hahahaha….

 
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