Taking A Toll

I was moaning about slow-moving traffic on the north-south highway last Sunday and, guess what? I'm moaning about it again today. Not that I've been on the road today since I've been lazily bumming around relaxing in Melaka, but on the road I was last night, and for a lot longer than was necessary. On a very ordinary Thursday night, well after the rush hour, you might reasonably expect the journey from the capital to Sungai Petai to take around an hour and three quarters tops. We added a good (actually a badly irritating) fifty minutes to that due to the very slow-moving traffic after Senawang or thereabouts. The cause? Originally we thought it could only be an accident that had blocked the three lane highway, but we failed to take into account the genius of whatever fulfils the role of a Department of Works over here who'd decided to shut down a full two lanes without thought of a contraflow system of any sort, in order to do something to the road, which was only fully opened less than five years ago.

Now I'm sure you're thinking that in an age when too many cars are on the roads it's just par for the course to expect a measure, possibly an unpalatably big one, of inconvenience. And, yes, I'd agree, but you have to pay a hefty fee each time you use the highway for the privilege of getting stuck in its slow-moving traffic. There's something deeply paradoxical about this that becomes a cause of frustration all of its own.

I need to remind myself of the mantra I so frequently cite to my students: Life isn't fair. True. And in this case the unfairness runs deep, deep, deep.