On the main roads of West Malaysia accidents occur almost every day. Most of them are caused by young drivers who are long of speed. The recklessness has caused the death of even careful drivers. What I am about to relate concerns the death of some young people, resulting from the reckless driving of a young man.
On the day in question, I was traveling with my brother to Ipoh. As my brother’s car was old, he had to drive slowly. We left Singapore, our hometown, very early in the morning, so that we could reach our destination before dark. The slow journey soon made me so tired that I fell asleep. However, we broke our Journey at Yong Peng, a small town in Johore, for some refreshment. When we resumed our journey, we saw a number of badly damaged vehicles in front of the Police Station of that town. My brother then began to talk about the various accidents that he had seen on that road. I began to grow uneasy about the rest of the journey. My brother had told me that most of the accidents occurred within a few miles of that town. I now began to fear for our own safety. Then, suddenly, a car, running at great speed, overtook our car. My brother then predicted that the car would be involved in an accident soon. After that my heart began to beat fast.
The car was soon out of sight. My brother, however, assured me that I would have an opportunity to see a very bad accident, and sure enough, we soon arrived at a distressing scene.
The car that had overtaken our car was in a ditch and four young girls were lying dead on the road-side. Their faces and clothes were covered with blood. Some people were trying to extricate the other occupants, including the young driver, who were still alive in the car. But all of a sudden, the car was on fire, and their efforts failed. Thus, the occupants in the car were burnt alive, and it is was indeed heart-rending to hear their last screams. Soon a fire engine and the police arrived with an ambulance, but it was too late.
This was indeed a horrible sight, and even today the mention of accidents reminds me of those piteous screams of the dying ones in that car.