龍捲風

I have totally forgotten that the road tax of my old car has expired for nearly 2 months.

In order to renew its road tax, I will need to get its insurance up to date. But its insurance is expiring in 4 months, which means that I will need to extend it by 2 more months.

Its road tax can only be renewed every 6 months because the car still belongs to my late father, its ownership is still pending for transfer. But insurance is renewable yearly.

I contacted Joanne yesterday night and by noon today, she said she has updated the system and told me to renew my road tax.

I decided to go to JPJ Menjalara in order to do so. Because JPJ Menjalara is not as crowded as JPJ Wangsa Maju.

I fired up Grab and it told me the would cost me RM15, one way. So I decided to drive there myself.

After driving around for 15 minutes around the area, I still could not find any empty parking spot.

So I decided to park my car in front of a clamped car and walked some 200 meters to the JPJ office.

I noticed that the owner of the clamped car was in his car playing with his handphone.

I hope I could get my business done within 15 minutes and return.

15 minutes or so later, I came out from the office and saw a group of uniformed officers around the spot where I have parked my car.

Hastening my pace, I arrived only to find out that they have already clamped my car and the saman and notis have been placed inside a zipped bag and clipped between the wiper and the windscreen.

By then, the car behind mine that was clamped earlier just drove away after being unclamped (probably paid his share of fine).

I identified myself as the owner of my car immediately and told the officer I would pay any amount of fine so that they could unclamp my car on the spot.

He pointed at the 1-300 number on the notice and told me to call the number.

While I was calling the number, he drove away!

On the other end of the phone, a woman answered my call. She asked for my name, NRIC number, contact number and the car registration plate. And asked me to pass my phone to the officer. I told her that the officer has already left.

She then said she will ask another team to unlock my car and told me to wait near my car.

So I waited at a kopitiam nearby for them to show up, oblivious to the fact that another car has parked behind mine, at a distance, its owner has gone into a bank.

Another car showed up, its lady driver parked between my car and the car behind mine. But she didn’t get down from her car, her passengers did.

The same clamping team arrived after 20 minutes or so. I signalled the lady driver to move away which she did promptly.

An officer jumped down from his van and took a photo of the other vehicle parked behind mine. He then proceeded to print out the saman and the clamping notice.

Another officer proceeded to unclamp my car and told me to pay the fine on the spot.

MYR 50 for unclamping and MYR 50 for fine. Fine. He then wrote me two receipts.

Just then, the owner of the other vehicle returned. He too asked that his car be unclamped and willing to pay his fine on the spot.

The officer, again, told him to call the 1-300 number on the notice and drove away while he was still on the phone.

Take home messages:

1. JPJ Menjalara is not as crowded because there is hardly any empty parking spot around.

2. Do not park near a car that has been clamped.

3. It is better to take Grab and pay only MYR 30 both ways than to pay MYR 100 for having your car clamped. I would have saved MYR 70.

4. The DBKL officers won’t wait for you to finish your call because their presence alone will hinder other cars from committing the same mistake as you.

5. DBKL will not clamp hundreds of cars that are double-parked, only cars that are parked outside of delineated parking spots convenience enough for other vehicles to pass by. Because they can’t park their vans anywhere else without blocking the traffic.

6. I am not pissed. I am just pointing out facts. And I am more grateful that they are efficient, albeit a bit too shrewd.