Malay Mail has superbly summarised this cess-pit menace. Read just a few of my earlier postings......here , here , here , here, here and here which I have done in various "moods" over the last 3 years !!I guess not many outside of the Klang valley are privileged to read this wonderful and informative paper so I'm reproducing the article in toto for your reading pleasure which appeared in page 2, yesterday.
Mat Rempit are not babies
February 10, 2009 Categories: News
MENACE: Mat Rempit are a scourge of other road users. Much more has been written about Mat Rempit over the years than is necessary to put an end to them; and we have failed, but not for want of using both carrot and stick—we’ve tried setting up drag-racing circuits, we’ve increased penalties for illegal street racing, we’ve even tried to rebrand them as Mat Cemerlang in the misguided belief that an imp by another name will result in a chubby-cheeked cherub.
We even conceived the ludicrous idea of sending them on the North Pole Free Fall expedition two years ago, prompting wags to speculate about letting them fall freely to the ground. Some of us even asked that they be recruited as transport-providers to help ferry voters to polling stations at the last general election.
Would you entrust your grandmother to the back of one of their kapcai?
What a splendid waste of time, money and credibility.
We are nonetheless enjoined to treat them as we do wayward children: Their feet need only be guided to the right path and they will turn instantly into stockbrokers in bespoke suits. We are exhorted to understand their frustration, their angst at being left out of the economic race, and to discover the root cause of their malcontent.
All this prolonged hand-wringing is tedious. What is the root cause? Simple: They aren’t so much running away from modern life as they are refusing entirely to engage it. To be sure, they get an undeniable kick out of thumbing their noses at the authorities, but theirs is not so much a rebellion as it is desperate resignation.
Their desire for speed, heroics and the constant proximity of death feed not some morbid sub-cultural fantasy of extreme urban protest, but the basic, primitive lust to be noticed by the world. They literally have nothing to prove, but like the mentally-deficient village bravo they wish to prove something all the same.
And we have responded in the past by trying to mollycoddle them, which is like getting hardened criminals to view basket-weaving as a fine source of income. Make no mistake: Mat Rempit are thugs and to treat them otherwise is to make a mockery of the law and civilised society.
Last week, a magistrate in Kuantan, Pahang, had enough of them and sentenced a 27-year-old Mat Rempit from Terengganu to 20 months’ imprisonment for reckless riding. The magistrate imposed an additional RM8,000 fine, and if the young man fails to pay it, he will remain in custody for an additional eight months.
We laud this strong action, late as it may be. We laud it not only because motorists are nightly endangered by these lunatics on the road. We laud it not because their crimes have lately escalated into highway robbery, rape and murder. We laud it because the people have had enough and may soon start dealing out a rougher kind of justice.
Such a case has in fact already happened: On New Year's Day in Baling, Kedah, the residents of Taman Mesra Kupang armed themselves with bamboo poles and catapults and attacked a gang of around 50 Mat Rempit.
The police arrested three illegal racers, aged 16 to 20, and the deputy district police chief Dept Supt Khamis Hamzah told the Press that police were “aware” of the areas favoured by the Mat Rempit.
If that is so, arrest them, for next time the residents may be moved to take more drastic action and who shall blame them?
Kudos Malay Mail...cheers !
We even conceived the ludicrous idea of sending them on the North Pole Free Fall expedition two years ago, prompting wags to speculate about letting them fall freely to the ground. Some of us even asked that they be recruited as transport-providers to help ferry voters to polling stations at the last general election.
Would you entrust your grandmother to the back of one of their kapcai?
What a splendid waste of time, money and credibility.
We are nonetheless enjoined to treat them as we do wayward children: Their feet need only be guided to the right path and they will turn instantly into stockbrokers in bespoke suits. We are exhorted to understand their frustration, their angst at being left out of the economic race, and to discover the root cause of their malcontent.
All this prolonged hand-wringing is tedious. What is the root cause? Simple: They aren’t so much running away from modern life as they are refusing entirely to engage it. To be sure, they get an undeniable kick out of thumbing their noses at the authorities, but theirs is not so much a rebellion as it is desperate resignation.
Their desire for speed, heroics and the constant proximity of death feed not some morbid sub-cultural fantasy of extreme urban protest, but the basic, primitive lust to be noticed by the world. They literally have nothing to prove, but like the mentally-deficient village bravo they wish to prove something all the same.
And we have responded in the past by trying to mollycoddle them, which is like getting hardened criminals to view basket-weaving as a fine source of income. Make no mistake: Mat Rempit are thugs and to treat them otherwise is to make a mockery of the law and civilised society.
Last week, a magistrate in Kuantan, Pahang, had enough of them and sentenced a 27-year-old Mat Rempit from Terengganu to 20 months’ imprisonment for reckless riding. The magistrate imposed an additional RM8,000 fine, and if the young man fails to pay it, he will remain in custody for an additional eight months.
We laud this strong action, late as it may be. We laud it not only because motorists are nightly endangered by these lunatics on the road. We laud it not because their crimes have lately escalated into highway robbery, rape and murder. We laud it because the people have had enough and may soon start dealing out a rougher kind of justice.
Such a case has in fact already happened: On New Year's Day in Baling, Kedah, the residents of Taman Mesra Kupang armed themselves with bamboo poles and catapults and attacked a gang of around 50 Mat Rempit.
The police arrested three illegal racers, aged 16 to 20, and the deputy district police chief Dept Supt Khamis Hamzah told the Press that police were “aware” of the areas favoured by the Mat Rempit.
If that is so, arrest them, for next time the residents may be moved to take more drastic action and who shall blame them?
Kudos Malay Mail...cheers !
1 comment:
Imbecile Umno dogs regard Mat Rempit as heroes. I wont be surprised Umno establish a university specially for these scums. Mat Rempit University ... mmm .... sounds exciting.
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