My Raya 2009.

There i was...deciding if i should be heading on home before going out to meet a friend when I had this brilliant and ill fated idea to stop over from Subang to PJ for an early dinner. Dutifully turned off the Fed Highway onto to the PJ Hilton traffic light (green) then the 2nd traffic lite (red). Stopped at the traffic lite, looked into the rear view mirror, saw a Kanchil speeding at the first traffic lite, heard a screech saw the Kanchil ramming into my back.Bang goes 20 years of accident free bliss.
Kanchil front in a mess, guy comes out and says "you can go,nobody stops at the red here!" I look at him, look at the still red traffic lite and say "you must be kidding me, man!"
Driver begs not to make a police report as he works in a workshop (they somehow always do) and can get it done for me easily. I say nope..gonna make it anyways. Damage to Kanchil..massive. Radiator water flooding out, bonnet V-shaped. Damage to Vios: bumper caved in, boot cant be opened. Took pictures of both cars (knew there was a reason i was totting my digital cam around), drove dutifully to the friendly neigbourhood police station in Sec 8 (thank God for my years spent in Sec 8, otherwise i wouldnt have a clue which police station to go to). Along the way to police station i get 4 phone calls from Mr Kanchil trying to stop me from making a police report. Easy to ignore it when your still in shock and wondering "what if i had just gone home instead?". Reach the police station.

And thus begins my education on the whole process of having an accident. Make the police report, off to see the Investigating Officer, who takes down your details and grunts to his man to take a pic of your car. Then you gotta come back to get the Keputusan, i.e, the result of the IO's investigation as to who was at fault. Many thanks to my lawyer friend for accompanying me at the police station. Its funny how dynamics change when you have a lawyer friend present to see you through this.

Then comes the insurance claim. Apparently after your car hits the 5 year mark, theres this thing called the "betterment" clause, i.e a percentage is agreed upon which you have to top up when it comes time to repair your car.The older the car, the higher the percentage you have to top up IF you want the repair shop to use original parts. Seems that the older your car is, the lesser premium u pay the insurance comp, therefore you aint entitled to original parts. Sheesh.

So there i am, carless for a couple of days. Taxi to ANYWHERE from Sg Besi is definitely not cheap so after a few days, my friend's mum graciously lent me her Kelisa, bless her soul.

Now imagine a 6 feet 4 fatty squeezing into a Kelisa, driving on KL road. Thank God it was bright yellow or else i would have been totally ignored by the other bigger cars! My hats off to those who drive Kelisas in big bad KL. Love the car though for its zippiness.

Yes there are friends who said it was a lucky thing it wasnt that major an accident."Perhaps it would have prevented you from a REALLY major disaster. Well to me its like saying "lucky you broke your leg or else you could've broken your neck."

What a Raya....