The recent viral incident at the Ayer Keroh R&R, where a lorry driver smashed through three improperly parked vehicles that were obstructing traffic, has sparked a familiar moral refrain: one should never take the law into one’s own hands.
On the surface, this sounds reasonable—even noble. But the case forces an uncomfortable question we often avoid asking: on what moral basis do we insist on restraint when we know, with near certainty, that those who break the law will face little or no consequence?
The lorry driver, identified only as Wan, has since spoken up. In a video shared by Utusan Melayu Plus and reported by FocusM, he explained that he—and many other motorists—had waited for close to an hour while the haphazardly parked vehicles blocked the passage. The queue behind his heavy trailer kept growing. There were buses, elderly passengers, children. Tempers were flaring. People were shouting at him to move, even though moving was physically impossible.
Explaining the scenario, Wan said in an Instagram video shared by Utusan Melayu Plus: “Before going live (on social media), we waited. If it’s just for a moment, it’s fine but it’s over an hour.
“People are making noise and telling us to move; everyone is angry, vehicles were already queuing up at the back. There were buses, old people and children.”
This detail matters. Because we already know what would likely have happened had the owners of those vehicles eventually returned.
They would apologise. They would hurriedly remove their cars. They might endure a few angry words. And that would be the end of it.
No real penalty. No lasting cost. No lesson learned.
This is precisely why many inconsiderate motorists in Malaysia have become unrepentant. They have internalised the cost of wrongdoing and found it trivial. At worst, a scolding. At best, nothing at all. The inconvenience, stress, and lost time imposed on dozens—or hundreds—of other road users simply do not factor into their moral calculus.
Anyone who drives regularly in Malaysia has seen this behaviour. Parking is available a few blocks away, yet a driver still double-parks right in front of a shop for sheer convenience. Rows of vehicles are forced to wait or inch slowly through a road that has been made narrow —sometimes for minutes, sometimes far longer—because someone could not be bothered to walk a short distance. Multiply this across time and traffic, and the wasted hours are staggering.
Some go further still. They leave their cars for hours without even leaving a phone number on the windshield, operating on the unspoken assumption that others will simply bear with it. Because what else can anyone do?
It is in this context that Wan’s actions must be judged—not in isolation, but against a system that has quietly normalised selfishness by refusing to meaningfully punish it.
Legally, Wan may face action for his “decisive driving manoeuvres.” Morally, however, the public response has been far more ambivalent. While some commentators urged patience—“call the cops and wait”—many others questioned why the lorry driver was the one in the dock, rather than the irresponsible parkers who caused the chaos in the first place. Some pointed out that attempts had already been made to move the vehicles before Wan took action. Others demanded to know why fines seemed to fall so easily on the man who acted, but so rarely on those who triggered the situation.
Notably, none of the owners of the damaged vehicles have come forward publicly. Perhaps they already understand where public sympathy lies.
Personally, I am inclined to view Wan’s actions through the lens of berani buat, berani tanggung—if you dare to impose costs on society through inconsiderate behaviour, you should be prepared to bear the consequences when society pushes back.
This leads to a more radical, but perhaps necessary, proposal: a traffic law regime where motorists who act to correct obstruction caused by illegal parking are not automatically liable for damages—provided they themselves do not act recklessly beyond what is necessary.
This would fundamentally alter incentives. It would teach inconsiderate drivers that parking irresponsibly is not merely a social faux pas but a genuine risk. It would condition motorists to value collective convenience over individual ease—to park a little further away, to walk a little more, to think beyond themselves.
Is this harsh? Perhaps. But deterrence always is.
The real question, then, is not whether Wan overstepped a boundary—but whether our insistence on patience has quietly enabled a culture of civic indifference.
Perhaps it is also time to confront a deeper problem—one that goes beyond traffic laws and enforcement. It is the prevailing Malaysian mentality that assumes one has the right to impose oneself on others simply because one believes one has already been imposed upon by others.
This way of thinking is corrosive. When we adopt it, we invariably convince ourselves that the inconvenience we have suffered is greater than the inconvenience we cause. And so, we justify imposing ourselves a little more, inconveniencing others a little further, in the name of balancing some imagined moral ledger.
The result is predictable. Imposition and inconvenience become normalised. What was once unacceptable slowly becomes routine. And when such behaviour spreads across society, the state responds in the only way it knows how: with harsher laws, heavier regulation, and stricter enforcement to correct an imbalance that citizens themselves refuse to restrain.
The alternative is far more demanding—but also far more liberating.
It requires a shift towards a mentality that refuses to impose itself on others, even when inconvenience has already been suffered. A mentality that recognises self-restraint not as weakness, but as civic strength. When individuals internalise this ethic, regulation becomes less necessary because society begins to govern itself.
In choosing not to impose ourselves, we do not merely benefit others—we benefit ourselves. We create conditions where order arises not from fear of punishment, but from mutual consideration. And in such a society, the law does not need to be constantly sharpened, because citizens have learned to blunt the impulse to inconvenience in the first place.
So ask yourself honestly:
If you were stuck for an hour, watching queues grow, tempers flare, and time bleed away because of someone else’s selfishness—would you patiently wait?
Or would you, like the lorry driver at Ayer Keroh R&R, decide that enough was enough?
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