VIDEO: Road Bully Caught On Camera In Serdang

Looks like another case of road bullying has been caught on camera, in Serdang this time, over something we understand to be as petty as a beep of a horn.

Clearly aggravated, the man driving the white Sonata pulls over to the left of the road and waits for the lady driver to come closer. As she approaches, the man darts his Sonata to the right in front of her, and slams the brakes – it also looks like a bit of contact between the cars as well.

That’s not the worst of it yet.

The angered driver steps out, and the rest, you can probably see. He even pushes his own wife and kid out of the way in anger: not something you want kids around you learning.

In the caption of the video, the lady recording it all says that the two were stuck in traffic, when the Sonata driver tried to squeeze his way into her lane, without using his signal. He forces his way through, and the two cars nearly hit each other, which is why the lady “instinctively” honked back.

How do you handle road bullies?

This is a tricky question, because often times, road bullies aren’t always cruel people: people have bad days, we all do, don’t we? That’s what makes handling them a bit difficult to predict. Here's four simple tips that may help you in the future:

• The best you can do is to protect yourself first, and to do that, we recommend trying to prevent the situation from happening altogether. Yes, honking is sometimes a very instinctive thing to do, as is believed to be the case here. But where possible, don’t blare your horn out in pure anger. A simple beep to call out for someone’s attention is ideal (not saying the victim here was blaring her horn), and hopefully your concerns are addressed.
• If someone’s being ignorant enough to cut ahead of you without courtesy of caution, let them. This can be difficult to bring yourself to do, but it could save you from a road bullying incident or worse. Thankfully, you can now send your videos and photographs of these ignorant drivers caught in the act to the Road Transport Department (JPJ), for their action. You can send them here: aduantrafik@jpj.gov.my
• When the pot does boil over, don’t react similarly – stay calm, stay in your car, lock the doors and windows. If the person outside seems calm enough, open the window marginally to speak – just enough for sound to travel clearly.
• Recording the incident is great for evidence later, but shoving a camera in someone’s face can further aggravate them, rather than deter them from acting out (partly why we think this chap got even more aggressive is because there was a camera right in his face). Let your dash-cams do the work, and be discreet about it should you need to reposition it, or whip out your mobile phone for back-up.

Thankfully, this incident didn’t escalate further, nor was anyone physically hurt.