Sunday, April 19, 2009

Unwilling stuntman at Jalan Lintas Ring Road

jalan lintas u-turn photoI became a stuntman driving my car flying over the divider at Jalan Lintas ring road like James Bond (Agent 007)always does in the movie recently. I was travelling from Damai towards Lintas Square at around 8:00pm and was keeping to the extreme right hand lane because I intended to turn right into Lintas Square at the traffic light. It is the habit of KK road designers to cut a special lane for drivers who want to turn right or make a u-turn so that these cars would not obstruct the main flow of traffic.I entered this special lane early to avoid meeting some weirdo drivers who refuse to let others to cross lanes and you may miss the junction if you are unlucky enough to meet such drivers. As I was happily driving along this special lane and keeping my eyes on the traffic lights at the far end wishing that it will turn green while I reach there. Suddenly there was a loud bang and felt a big thud under my car, and I found myself air-borne! I held my steering wheel tight in order not to land on the opposite lane and luckily landed on the grass of the divider. I guess I flew almost 10 meters and was lucky enough not to ram into any on coming cars! Thank God there was no lamp post, no trees on the divider,else I wont be sitting here writing this story already. Then I realized I entered this special lane too early because it leads to an u-turn first and the smart ass who designed this part of the road built a curb after the u-turn so that cars in this lane can only u-turn and cannot go straight. If you want to turn right you have to enter the special lane after the u-turn.Why he has to build the curb and not allow cars to go straight pass the u-turn, only God knows. If you realized you are in the wrong lane and do not want to make a u-turn,you have to avoid hitting the curb by swerving to the left and risk being hit by cars coming from behind.But at night You will not be able to see the curb because the lighting was poor and the curb was not painted with reflective material. In the above news clip you can see the brake marks on the roads, I am certain many drivers had performed (unexpectedly) the same stunt as I did. The person in the picture was a DAP leader,Edward. Maybe he too suffered the same fate...LOL

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