You might have seen our very own Yang di-Pertuan Agong wading through a body of water with a Toyota Hilux on his recent visit to the flood-hit Pahang. That was probably the best demonstration of strength of the Hilux and it was done by the YDPA himself, no less. But it turns out that the pickup truck is defenceless against one thing – potholes.
This set of photos that are making the rounds on social media show a Hilux plunged headlong into a submerged pothole at Kampung Rinching in Semenyih, Selangor. The condition of the driver is unknown but we hope that he or she managed to walk away unharmed from this incident.
Judging by the angle of the truck, the pothole looks to be at least a metre deep and probably a metre wide. To be fair to the Hilux, a hole this size would pose a great threat even to bigger trucks like the Ford F-150, let alone a mid-sized pickup truck. On that note, it is fortunate that no motorcycle riders or cyclists (to our knowledge) have fallen victim to this ‘death trap’ because they would not have survived this.
Potholes have been plaguing road users in Malaysia since a long time ago and despite many complaints, the problem never seems to come to an end. In fact, new ones keep showing up even on newly constructed roads. I guess it’s fair to say that Malaysians are so frustrated by this but seeing little is being done about it, we have no choice but to begrudgingly accept it as a part of life.
Lately, it became the talk of the nation again after Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin ran over a pothole while cycling and fell into a ditch. His tweet about the incident was followed by an apology from JKR Kuala Langat and within a day, the road where the minister had his mishap was fixed. This sparked anger among the netizens who accused the department of having a double standard.
A few days later, a 75-year-old man died after he lost control of his motorcycle after running over a pothole near Mid Valley. A little over 24 hours after the incident, a food delivery rider suffered the same fate in Kota Damansara. No apologies were issued on either occasion.
But that’s not the point here. We feel that an immediate and effective action plan by the authorities would create a more significant impact in preventing more unfortunate pothole-related incidents from happening in the future.
