NOVEMBER 24 — You hear and see it every now and then.
A driver standing by his parked car, looking around in semi-frustration and pressing his horn. He’s treating the neighbourhood to an uninterrupted audio blare because there’s another car blocking his way.
He honks and honks and honks.
Sometimes the guilty driver who has double-parked and whose vehicle is illegitimately blocking the other car comes out really quickly and all is well.
At other times, not so well. Because, as every Malaysian knows, there are occasions when the offending driver is either occupied or is so presumptuous he thinks the car he’s blocked plans to be stationary for a few hours or he simply doesn’t give two damns.
In which case you are going to hear the blocked driver hit his horn until and even after the cows and their friends come home.
(I even know of someone who, refusing to wait anymore for the driver to come out, took a jack and smashed the window of the offending vehicle to release the handbrake and push the car out of the way. For real.)
Imagine my surprise (or lack of?) when I asked Grok about global double-parking offenders and guess which country is among the top 10? Yeah. Kita memang boleh! (see Note 1)
What is it with societies and double-parking?
On one hand, given the explosion in the number of cars on the road and the pitiful lack of available parking lots, “single-parking” becomes practically impossible and people are forced — like the quasi-extinct creatures in Jurassic Park — to find a way.
Anyone who’s tried grabbing lunch at a Damansara Utama or Sri Petaling restaurant on a busy weekday will know what I mean.
Oftentimes you can drive round and round (and round!) looking for parking by which time you may as well just go back to the office and order Grab delivery.
That’s why many drivers double-park, leave a note with their name and number and just pray they don’t get a phone call from the car they blocked just when they’re digging into their spaghetti carbonara.
On the other hand, even given the inevitability of double-parking, one surely doesn’t have to be an asshole and block orang jer.
For God’s sake, people need to drive out of their parking lots so let’s not act like that space in front of their car is ours by divine right!
It’s perhaps a sign of progress (or at least roadside manners) that double-parkers in many urban areas leave their phone numbers on their dashboard.
It’s like, yes, I’m doing something illegal but c’mon we all understand how hard it is to find parking at this time and please don’t worry if you need to come out... just call me.
And it’s even reached a point where many Malaysian drivers do not mind when a car blocks them as long as they don’t use an LOTR DVD duration to move their car.
This makes double-parking in Malaysia both socially damning and weirdly cordial at the same time.
Now excuse me while I pause my writing and step out of this café to, uh, move my car…
Note 1: I asked Grok to build metrics based on available real-world data to proxy-gauge and rank countries according to double-parking. Using three categories — Illegal Parking Prevalence, Complaints of Insufficient Parking and Congestion Hours Lost — Grok consistently listed Malaysia among the top 10 even when adjusting for different weightages per category. I don’t think Grok is far from wrong.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
** A previous version of this story contained errors which have since been corrected.
