There's rattling sound in my Alfa and its coz of those damn pothholes

Drivers who drive at 40km/h on a federal roads, typically with speed limits of 90-80km/h, should be shot. Or better their cars could be lined up side by side at Stadium Negara, and have those big, huge monster truck roll over them, with their owners forced to watch in horror. Thats a pretty good business plan. At the same time, the gate collection from the show, can be channelled to the Ops Sikap (my brorther speculated that Sikap is actually 'kasi' + 'tangkap') conducted every year.

The police head honco was quoted as saying that he's saddened that the tireless effort by the police force for Ops Sikap this year has still been unable to reduce the death toll. I don't know bout you, but hell boy, speed ain't gonna kill nobody, its the sudden change in speed / direction thats getting people in statistics. There's 3 factors that contribute to road accidents. They are human error, vehicle, and the environmental conditions. I think there's much less emphasis being put on the 2nd and the last factor.

Take vehicle. How many of us do regular maintenance on our cars? Simple basic ones such as check tyre pressure / thread / balancing / alignment / rotate. Tyre is the only part of the car thats holding our cars to the road. Imagine the stress that it has to go through, the heat, the flexing of the sidewalls through corners, the braking, the acceleration of our cars and so much more. Ignoring their maintenance, means we're a step closer to losing our NCB, best case scenario or worst, a ticket to six feet under.

I'm so pissed by the endless road constructions / repairs going on at Karak highway and at the Kuantan - Kemaman bypass road. Maintenance, as neccessary as they are, induces human error, leading to accidents, even death. I remember there's this bridge and junction construction near Gebeng, which was never completed, until a van carrying a family, met their untimely death there. Then voila, a couple months later, work started to pick up, and the work was completed in no time. So that's what it takes? Fuck man, even if the roads are repaired, after a monsoon season, pothholes will flourish, like 'cendawan yang tumbuh selepas hujan'. Its killing my Alfa. Well, my Sachs Super Touring absorbers certainly aren't much of help on these treacherous roads. I don't know what kind of engineering standards being used for road construction, but my common sense tells me that any repair / construction work, should take into consideration what ever environmental challenges it has to be put through.

Back to Ops Sikap. Are we addressing the right root causes? Are we even doing root cause analysis on what are the root causes, contributing causes to road accidents? It certainly don't look like it. The numbers don't lie. I'm guessing better road conditions, better signages will help. Poor road conditions, filled with hazards, lead to drivers having to brake and accelerate whenever approaching danger zones, leading to higher wear on tyres, coupled with poor maintenance awareness or practice, leads to uneven thread wear, hence a higher risk in the vehicle not going where the driver wants it to go to. Sooner or later, bang! Another statistic. Another death. Another spare part for kereta potong.

Hmm...it might just be a Hella spot light that'll fit into my Alfa.