We are Malaysians after all

Most tambak riders are lunatics on the road. And so accidents of them on Singapore expressways are very common(Way more common than on JB roads and it is something I cannot explain). But that is not the purpose of this blogpost.

Whenever a tambak rider accident occurrs, it always brings out some sort of camaraderie amongst us. It is rather weird in a way that when shit happens on Singaporean expressways, we see only a fellow Malaysian in trouble and we must render assistance without blinking an eyelid. At such moments we do not see ourselves as Indian Malaysians, Malay Malaysians, Chinese Malaysians, Sabahan or even Singaporean.

I have personally met with an accident on AYE. Within a minute I hit the ground, two tambak riders approached me and I was whisked to safety on the road shoulders in the next minute. The swiftness in our response to fellow riders in dire are truly amazing.

In an accident a few months back this Malaysian Chinese Uncle whose motor buang(skidded) on the BKE.

Immediately an Indian uncle stop his motorbike in the center lane, shielding and signaling to vehicles behind him to avoid squashing the fallen Chinese uncle. In doing so the Indian uncle was risking his own safety too.

Fortunately the the Chinese uncle just suffered scratches. He got up on his own to move his bike to the side of the road. While the kind Indian uncle helped picked up the stuffs laying on the road.

More tambak riders stopping to check if things are ok. Maybe a bit kepoh but it help slows down the oncoming vehicles. Things were settled in about 5 minutes and everyone rode off for home.

Of course it is quite normal for strangers to help others in moment of needs such as an accidents. Nonetheless, I do feel strongly that there is something else there. It is like an unwritten code that we tambak riders are foreigners in a foreign land, therefore it is imperative we must help those of us that has fallen. For one day it maybe us on the other end in need of urgent help.

Although some tambak riders do get into bloody fistfights when someone cut queue. But when we are stuck at the checkpoint jams, we generally see ourselves as Malaysians (albeit downtrodden).

The really sad thing is that when we crossed over the causeway into JB, we sinked back into our own ethnically polarized groups.