The real price of fuel

I'm not sure if this happens anywhere else, but in KL, you practically have to beg a cab to take you where you'd like to go.*

Patrons flag down cabs, open the door, and ask timidly if the cabbie would please take their money and take them to such-and-such a destination. It's not unusual for commuters to be rejected two or three times before they find a taxi that deigns to give them a ride.

And then there are the predators. Like the ones that wait outside big shopping malls like KLCC and ignore - yes, look the other way and ignore - local passengers and will only pick up tourists who unknowingly step into a 4-doored, air-conditioned, un-metered trap.

Hardly surprising then, that lots of people in the city prefer to walk 20 minutes to food stalls or brave a ride on dangerously overloaded buses - even at the risk of losing valuables to pick-pockets (my cellphone has made one sneaky fucker about 300 - ok, 200 - bucks).

The cabbies win though. As of last week, fuel prices have gone up 10 cents a litre and the buses have swiftly followed with a fare hike. That means between a 90 cent bus ride where you're most likely going to stand and 3.50 cab ride split four ways, even more people than before are standing under the hot sun begging cabbies to basically do their job.

Today the papers wrote of a cab driver who added his own (un-metered) fare hike in response to the fuel price increase. The passenger refused to pay the hike. The cabbie got down, dragged him from the cab, and proceeded to beat him senseless.






*Ok, I just saw the Amazing Race. It happens.

A bit of shameless self-promotion. But only a bit.

One of the things I liked when I worked at a magzine was all the free (though not necessarily cool) stuff you got.

Like invites to watch movies for free, without lining up, and before anyone else. All in exchange for a review. It's been 4 years since I wrote one so I thought I'd post it and let my audeince benefit from it.

Or not.

Anyhow, here's the first one. There's also a link on my sidebar for future reviews.

Who do you call?

WH is my neighbours' son. Nice polite boy, always says hi, just started college.

One night, my parents told me an unmarked police car had been seen next door. 3 cops came out, questioned WH at length after which got into the car with them and drove off. 1 cop drove away WH's jeep.

He did not return the next morning. In fact, nobody from my neighbours' house returned next morning. I usually see WH's dad as I return from my morning run but his car wasn't even in the driveway. I usually see his sister when I go to work, but she wasn't there either. They emerged the following day visibly affected - solemn and reluctant to make conversation.

Over the course of the week, we began to speculate and my parents' conclusion was it might be a car accident, maybe even a hit-and-run. WH is a nice enough boy, but he kept company with some rowdy types (one time, one of them parked his Evo 7 right across our driveway and when politely asked to move it waved us off with a flippant "I'm not gonna be here long." before going into the house). My folks thought whatever happened might not have been WH's fault, but perhaps his friends had borrowed his car and something happened.

I began to wonder all sorts of things:
Was he in custody?
Were they getting a lawyer?
If he was in the wrong could they plea-bargain like you did in the movies?
Who would I call?
Should we think about getting a family lawyer for things like this?
How do I ask how he's doing without embarrassing my neighbours? Or myself?

Another thing I thought about was had I come home and seen the cops questioning him, would I have stepped in and asked if he needed help? Or would I have slinked into the house and watched from the window?

A week later, WH came home. Thinner, but otherwise himself. And after that, things quickly returned to normal.
I never asked him what happened.
I still don't have a lawyer.

C.H. (1978 - 2005)

It hasn't hit us yet, but it will.
And everyone, everyone will hurt.