The Birth of Traffic Anarchy

Perhaps I have been over dramatic but this was the reality on a not-so fine evening home.

The bus that I took left KL fairly sharply 5.35pm and there goes what I had failed to anticipate would be a long, long journey home. I slept multiple times in it, yet upon each awakening was far from the familiar place called home. It reached Klang at about 6.45pm when the real journey home then begins.

After an hour in the bus (as usual), I (as usual) was hoping for a quick trip to my house. Two days ago, the bridge adjoining Klang and the federal highway had closed because of some flyover project that was going to take place. It was presumed to end after a proposed 3months period. Hence, (as usual) certain roads were closed and the traffic has been directed to an alternative flow.

Well, that was the only option; there wasn't any alternative, really. Hence, we were all directed to a trip of a huge circle before we were supposed to end up practically the same area we begin with in order to go around the blocked road. And, as you would have expected from the title, the display of the breakdown of social order in the traffic sense took place. There came a T-junction when a bus decided to cross the road so that it obstructed quite the middle of it, causing the next green light lanes unable to move. Putting it simply, it was almost as if it was at the middle of it all. And that was after about half an hour of traffic jam before we reached this state!

Traffic lights turned green, red and green and red again and green...however I was oblivious to it as I was merely observing the condition and not the traffic lights! Nothing was able to move except air and the sound waves created by endless honkings. In fact, the traffic lights were suddenly not performing its function as vehicles decided to collectively disobey the rule of traffic. Once there was a slight progress, every vehicle literally took advantage to move and there appear what seem to be vehicles in odd positions; verticals and horizontals, all craming in the hopes of threatening to scratch other vehicles by squeezing in on each other. Oh, and it was slightly drizzling. Not that it made a difference anyway.

After a gruelling hour and a half in total, I finally set foot home. All in all, from KL was a whooping two and a half hour of ride home! 83.33333% of my criminal class alone! Damn. Though I was strangely calm in the midst of this traffic anarchy. It's probably the exhaustion. Or the effect of this usual routine. Upon escaping from that brink of traffic chaos, it was like a huge surge of relief going through my body as the car started picking up reasonable pace. It's as if you wanna cry! (slight figurative exaggeration).

Being a law student, I imagined bringing a claim on the town council or the party involved in the construction of the flyover. I would say that this arrangement has obviously affected the public in that inconvenience and unnecessarily unreasonable traffic jam were caused. We were detained in the car for a long time that if we were to hop out to the stalls and have a drink, we had only barely moved an inch. Trust me, it was that bad. Obviously the defending party would tip the scale by arguing that the social utility derived from the developments that were taking place would outweigh the inevitable consequences that it caused.

Anyway, we were expecting the public to voice out soon. And it may be soon enough to possibly be the headline tomorrow. Okay, maybe another slight exaggeration.

For three months would this condition continues. And at the end of the time frame, the worst may then happen. The last straw would definitely be when the bus station changes its location. Hopefully by then, I would be out of here. There is no comparison to be made now between taking the bus and standing in a sardin tin. They had a common ground now.