Our country was recently caught up with the unfortunate news of 8 young boys aged from 13 to 17 passing away due to a tragic road accident. A 22-year-old woman had rammed her car into them while they were cycling. She couldn’t brake in time and the victims were killed on the spot.
Many Malaysians had a lot of things to say about this. There were those who immediately found fault with the driver, claiming that she wouldn’t have been able to mow down 8 cyclists if she wasn’t already driving fast to begin with.
There were those who placed fault on the guardians of these children, reprimanding them for allowing these young children to leave their home during odd hours and not monitoring their behaviour properly. Some have even suggested a punishment for guardians who allow their young children to roam the streets at night.
There were also a fair few who brought up authorities and their stance on this. Some questioned on why there was no action taken if this was a problem to begin with.
This has led to a Facebook user by the name of Zulhazri Abu Bakar to share an opinion of a policeman on the matter. The post highlighted the efforts that the police force have taken before to stop these teenagers from cycling dangerously on the roads during late hours.
The policeman who wishes to remain anonymous speaks of other incidents prior to this. He says that these children were not just from the main Johor Bahru area but came in a group of 30 to 40 from areas such as Plentong, Pasir Putih, Masai, Tampoi, Kempas, Skudai, and Tiram. They were frequently seen not just once or twice but almost every weekend.
“It’s not that we did not warn them, we have even used a megaphone to do so. Some of us have even lost our patience and threw their bicycles away not because of any ill intentions but as a reminder so they may feel afraid to repeat this dangerous act,” said the post.
Unfortunately, he said it was all in vain as the children were not supervised properly by their parents.
The post also mentioned how the cyclists would react every time the authorities tried to stop them.
“Whenever you headed over to them, they would start screaming and taunting the police by lifting their bikes to the opposite side of the road. This is how it was like usually,” said the post.
To prove his point, there were two videos attached with the post depicting these teenagers cruising down the roads and doing dangerous acts where they would not have been able to steer away from danger if there was any. They also ignored the sirens of the police officer and kept cycling away.
The usual locations these children cycled at were not just at the shoulders of roads but also right in the middle.
He also listed a few hotspots around the area where you would catch them cycling around with no concern on their safety even though 95% of their bicycles were middle-sized and had small tyres.
“With every warning, they continued to not heed our words. So when these incidents happen, who’s to blame? Of course 50% of us policemen are placed at fault for not taking the right action but where is the role of the parent or guardian that should have been more alert?” questioned the policeman.
He ended the post with saying that although he understood that young children would want freedom and have fun, parents should be monitoring their behaviour to not have this kind of incident repeated as most of these children are as young as 10.
The original post can be seen below:
Feature Image Credit: thestar.com.my