HANDICAP bays? Fire hydrant? “Aiyah, it’s just for a few minutes” or some such excuse will be proffered by errant parkers.
Civic consciousness or even plain old common sense seems to go missing when it comes to Malaysian motorists and parking etiquette.
This was most certainly the case highlighted by Facebooker Megat Hisemudin Megat Kasim about car windscreen smashed (in an undisclosed location) to allow the fire fighters access to a fire hydrant.
Unlike his usual political and historical analysis, the author simply lamented that it was “understood” to keep the space next to a hydrant vacant even when there isn’t a no parking sign.
This public service announcement by the mechanical engineer by training has generated 977 Likes, 177 comments and 53 shares at the time of writing.
Unsurprisingly, there was a mixed reaction underlining the whole point of the post. Malaysians (some) seem to have little or no civic mindedness.
Of course, there were plenty who agreed and applauded the fire fighters for taking decisive action against the selfish motorist. One observer even suggested cutting the car in half as punishment!
One pertinent point was whether such motorists were “sleeping in class” when studying for their driving tests.
But to underline that many Malaysians are a stubborn bunch and refuse to see that certain actions are blatantly wrong, there were those who made all manner of suggestions to the fire fighters, starting with “why didn’t go sideways?”
AI deception or real?
Some clueless commenters casually asked why not just “go under the car” observing that the “hose wasn’t that big”.
One unconvinced netizen argued that it was “illogical” that the hose could not go “over the car roof”. Again, it had to be pointed out the hose would become rock hard due to handling high pressure flow.
There were then plenty of polite responses as to why the fire fighters had to take drastic action. The pipe was not an ordinary garden hose. It is made from specific materials to deliver high pressure water to douse blazes and cannot be bent.
A few eagle-eyed commenters seem to have spotted some discrepancies in the image that suggested that it was a product of artificial intelligence (AI).
However, this was beside the point as the post still served as a useful reminder that such action should not be tolerated.
Amazingly, while pointing out that this image was AI-generated, one commenter suggested that the fire fighters pause from their actual duties of putting out fires to “carry and move the vehicle” as these models (eg Axia and MyVi) weren’t that heavy!
The reply was whether this commenter was expecting each fire truck to be ferrying 50 personnel to facilitate such a tedious effort.
The fact that there were a number of dissenting opinions underlines that enough Malaysians lack the common courtesies expected of responsible motorists.
Long way to go before Malaysians are seen as ‘civil society.’—June 7, 2026
Main image: Megat Hisemudin Megat Kasim (Facebook)
