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If you want to meet KL’s worst bus drivers, do come around to the area near my workplace, ie. Masjid Jamek/Leboh Ampang/Tun H.S. Lee. You’ll see all sorts…the amateurs who park along the yellow line, the bolder ones who just stop as they please to let down, wait for, or pick up passengers, and the masters…those who drive half their vehicle up onto the kerb and park there at a precarious angle while somehow still managing to block off half the road.

What happened last week takes the cake, though. We were turning left into one of the roads leading to my office after lunch (the main road that we were originally on also has a lane for cars to go straight), but found ourselves stuck behind some cars because this champion bus driver parked his big fat a$$ right in the middle of that road. With several buses parked on the left, and a lorry unloading on the right, the whole road was effectively blocked. The traffic behind us began building up, and even the cars that wanted to go straight, couldn’t! All the cars were honking, but that bus driver just refused to budge. I can almost imagine him sitting in his bus, going “la la la la la…I’m the king of the road….wheeeee…”. It was absolutely ridiculous, ludicrous, preposterous and what other -ous you can think of…

The icing on the cake, however, was this bus driver that was originally waiting on our right. He suddenly decided that he didn’t want to turn into that road anymore, manuevered his bus out of the jam (that itself is already a feat!), zoomed down along the main road and made a right turn further down the road. The thing is…you can’t make a right turn on that road!! That crazy driver literally bulldozed his way through the oncoming traffic, and all the cars and motorcyclists that were going straight had to stop for him. Now that one…that one was the grand master himself, I tell you.

Sheesh. I remember shaking my head in disbelief (and at the same time, wishing I had my camera with me!). Never seen anything like it.

I seriously think this place has the potential to be listed as one of the must-see sights in the Visit Malaysia 2007 brochure.

It’s either extremely congested - this usually happens when bus drivers who are colour blind, ie. those who think that red means green and green also means green and orange doesn’t even register at all, try to inch their way through the red light like some elephant who *thinks* no one would notice, and in turn, create their own mini traffic jam packaged with honks aplenty…

…or the road is pretty empty, and then that’s when you can see buses speeding down the road like the four horsemen of the apocalypse are hot on their heels.

The tagline can be “Visit the place where the worst roads in KL meet with the worst bus drivers in KL!!”. It can be the next stop after Dataran Merdeka and the courthouse. After all, what’s a visit Malaysia without at least experiencing in person the infamous KL traffic jams and crazy drivers, right?