Still catching up on last week’s news:
A speeding pack of young bikers crashed into an elderly couple on a motorcycle in Repek (Kelantan) on Wednesday evening, killing a 68-year-old grandmother on the spot and seriously injuring her husband.
Rubber tapper Siti Muriam Awang Hamat, who was riding pillion, died of head and body injuries. Her husband, 68-year-old Che Jusoh Che Lah, has been warded in Raja Perempuan Zainab II Hospital with head and body injuries.
Condolences to the family :( :(
Despite more and more of such incidences, Putera Umno chief Datuk Azeez Abdul Rahim is still putting his money on these guys:
MAT Rempit will be given a “study tour” of hospitals and prisons to prick their conscience about riding dangerously. Putera Umno chief Datuk Azeez Abdul Rahim said the intention of the visits was to let them see the pain and hardship suffered by accident victims and their families. “If possible, we will let them see those who are critically ill or comatose patients to make them realise the consequences of their action. It is hoped that their visits to the prisons would be an eye-opener,”
Yah. Well. I guess I hope so too. That there’ll be pricks involved there’s no doubtlah.
*
The corporate world looks to capitalise on the Mat Rempit phenomenon too, in a way they hope will benefit everyone. Check out the Malaysian Super Series – airing on TV even.
*
I randomly came by this through Google, and am shocked that we and the Mat Rempit have made it so far overseas – all the way to a feature in the LA Times. Crazy! Imagine what the world must think of us.
Read on for quotes and observations:
Intro from the article:
THE traffic light lingered red as the motorcycles congregated at a crowded downtown intersection — engines revving, drivers fidgeting. Dozens more filtered through the idling cars to the makeshift starting line and soon there were 60 cycles in all, buzzing like angry insects.
Then the light turned green and chaos ruled.
In a renegade roar of noise and smoke, they were off. Teenage girls riding pillion held on tightly as their boyfriends popped wheelies, vying for show space, racing fast and furious into the humid October night.
*
Factory workers and fry cooks, soldiers and students, these Malaysian Marlon Brando wannabes are typically bored teens with too little money and too much time in this orderly Muslim nation, experts say.
But the government has recently declared war on the youthful street subculture. Since the races became popular in the mid-1990s, scores of youths have been killed. The fatality rate has surged in recent years, leaving officials wondering, “Why only in Malaysia?”
*
“The mat rempit are very aggressive, sometimes even criminal,” said Shafien Mamat, deputy of traffic enforcement for police here in the capital. “They’re a major problem in our country. Motorists are afraid of them.” (nat: I know I am)
The racers have also become a cultural phenomenon, inspiring a popular movie as well as a university study that sought to paint a portrait of the cyclists. One political party wants to turn the races into a tourist attraction.
Comments by one Wazi Hamid:
“I said, ‘You want these racers to stay in every night and play with their baby dolls and wear women’s clothing so your streets can be emptier?’ ” Hamid recalled. “These kids are not that kind of people. They’re athletes and they’re proud of who they are.”
Hamid sponsors several youth programs to defuse the problem: He invites the most skillful riders to join his motorcycle performance team as a way to earn money. For the rest, he offers free two-day seminars on bike safety.
The slightly built Hamid, a father of four, calls many of the riders “my boys.”
“You’ve got to talk to these kids,” he said. “You have to show them some respect, rather than just strong-arm tactics. Increased enforcement should be used as a last resort. You can’t destroy a culture just because you don’t like it.”
Err. Not that I want to go with the latest Umno love for destroying all-inclusive Malaysian cultures, but when a culture is criminal, I think you can.
On a recent Saturday night, Hamid toured downtown streets saturated with the acrid odor of thousands of motorcycles.
By night’s end, a 21-year-old would be stabbed to death in an early-morning face-off between mat rempit.
Outside Kuala Lumpur, two 15-year-olds were killed during a race on a rural back road. Neither boy had a driver’s license, police said.
But at midnight, the night was still young.
First world country? Sigh…. :(
