Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Honesty goes a long way?

I got into a little car accident last Friday...was coming out of a t-junction from usj 2 into the main road in front of Summit when a guy hit me from behind. Wasn't a serious thing... just my left rear light was broken, some of the paint came off and the bumper got bumped out of alignment. I was going pretty slowly trying to get out onto the main road, so it was pretty obvious the other guy's fault. I could've been unfortunate and the guy who bumped me happened to be some hooligan who refused to admit his fault and try to avoid paying. But the Indian guy who bumped was fortunately an honest guy who straight away apologized and gave me his business card to contact me for payment. It turns out he actually had a 'good' reason for bumping me, coz' he had just caused another accident by hitting a motorcyclist at the main traffic light nearby heading to the Kesas highway, and for some reason he couldn't stop there but had to go back into usj 2 and then return back to the scene to help out the poor motorcyclist. And in his rush to get back, he bumped into my car. Later I saw the motorcyclist for myself, lying on the road looking pretty injured. A traffic policeman who was directing traffic at the time (this was rush hour morning traffic, mind you) also said he saw the accident himself. So the poor bumpee had to rush the poor motorcyclist to the hospital, and in the midst of digesting this interesting turn of events, I completely forgot the essential what-to-do's in the event of a car accident, like taking down the license number of the bumpee, getting his contact number, and even getting his I.C. number, according to my dad. His business card didn't even have his handphone number, just his company number. So the guy could very easily have screwed me up and try to avoid payment of my car's damage....especially in light of his other more serious accident, which I sure would have even greater financial consequences than my little bump. He seemed like an honest guy to me though, and I guess I naively believed him when he said he would pay up, but my parents were very skeptical. My mum even thought he could've given someone else's business card instead of his own. Such things have happened before, where some dishonest jerks use one tactic or another to avoid paying for their mistakes.
I did feel kinda sorry and emphatatic for the guy though...after all he'd just caused a more serious accident, and if I were in his situation I might have lost my cool and bumped someone else too. If I were a rich kid, I probably would've let it slide and pay for the repairs myself. But I'm not, and as sympathatic as I was for the poor guy for having TWO accidents in one day, he still has to pay up. So I prayed that he was an honest guy who would've try to FFK (fong fei kei = 'disappear', or literally, 'fly a plane' in Cantonese) on me...which is kind of a selfish prayer. But I also prayed that the payments he would have to make for both the accidents wouldn't take too big a toll on him financially, and that the guy he hit would heal quickly as well, and that he wouldn't get into too much trouble for it. I also prayed that if he WAS an honest guy and really was responsible enough to pay up, that he would be even more blessed in the future. And if not, well, God can handle that lah. Hehe.
Fortunately for me, God has answered my first prayer and today we met up with the guy, who's name is Batmanathan, by the way (my dad has already nicknamed him Batman. :P), and he took us to his usual workshop to get a assessment on the damages for my car. We couldn't get my car fixed today though, coz' Batman didn't have enough money. A very suspicious excuse under normal circumstances, but for his situation I could understand coz' he had to pay for his own car damage, the motorcycle damage, AND the hospital bills for the motorcyclist which comes up to over RM2000 on its own. So it was no surprise to me when he said he was going to replace my car light with an unoriginal one instead of the better original light, which is double the price. My dad wasn't too happy about that and was insisting on the original, and that really stressed out Batman. But later on, I convinced my dad to give the guy some slack and let him get the unoriginal, since he's honest enough to pay for the damages in the first place...plus he has to pay for a heap of other things. If the guy hadn't been in that kind of panic when he hit me, and he was just being an idiot driver, I would've insisted he buy the original too. But under the circumstances, I think it's really good that he's even being so responsible, when a lot of people would've tried anything to avoid paying a couple of hundred. The car should be fixed up next week, and hopefully by then, Batman guy doesn't decide to ignore his ethics and FFK us then...which my mum and dad kinda suspects he might. I guess I am a bit too trusting of people, but I'd like to believe there is some good in this world and not everyone has forgotten their values. And this guy seems to be one of those people, so I encouraged and thanked him through sms today for being honest with us. And once the car is fixed, I'm thinking I might even write a letter commending his honesty to his boss, so that hopefully he will get rewarded or blessed with a higher position or whatever in his company. Hey, such rare honesty should be rewarded, right? People need to know that honesty, instead of DIShonesty, pays off. Heh. :)

1 comment:

Dissociated Mind said...

wow.. I feel sorry for that guy. Thank God he bumped into u instead of someone else less forgiving and empathetic!