Sg Rengit Accident

Jess joined us today for our runabout JB since she had holed up at home for the past few days during her compulsory leaves. D was in charge of the "bring camera" department, but she failed her duties. I was left to depend on my lousy phone cam for pictures. We met at Danga Bay around 7:15am and proceeded to the Grandpa kopitiam for breakfast. After a hearty one, I decided to bring her round the Desaru area, since she missed our last outing to that place. She was keen to visit the fruit farm as well, and so the plan was to head for Desaru, go Sg Rengit for lunch, and thereafter end at the fruit farm, hopefully to pick up some durians for Shawn.

Half beaks in a longkang


Very nice driftwood


Sheeps by the sea


Desaru at this time was deserted, devoid of people. Probably so because it was a weekday, and also because of the monsoon period. Swimming was not allowed and a red flag was raised to warn of the strong waves hitting the shore. We walked a little along the sandy beach, and unknowningly stepped on some sticky oily stuff and had to scrapped it off at the toilet. After that, I drove down a little from the usual beach and came to a golf course. Beyond that, the road ended and we had to turn back.

The quaint duck porridge stall


Nice spread of home cooked food


Moving southwards, we travelled past the cratered road, filled with potholes. Making a right turn, we arrived at Sg Rengit, just in time for lunch. Not being sure of the cleaniness of the food around here, we stopped at my usual duck porridge stall for a cheap and good meal. I had visited this place a few times, and found it to be clean and nice. Total meal only came up to RM19 for the 4 of us.



After lunch, I was thinking of leading Jess to the ferry terminal for a look see, and we had to travel on this narrow road where there was right opening along the single lane road. Car in front of us signalled to turn right, and we all slowed down behind it to wait for it to turn . Naturally, I was in front, and Jess following behind. A was sitting in her car to keep her company and to make sure she stayed awake while driving. But all of a sudden, a Toyota Land Cruiser, driven by a lady came at Jess at a fairly high speed. She noticed that Jess was almost stationary too late, and crashed into her back. Jess car lunged forward and hit my behind and gave me a jolt. Such was the force that D who was sitting behind the seats, flew forward hitting the back of my car seat. I was stunned for a while but recovered to realized that Jess had been hit. Putting on the hazard light, I moved aside and disembark to examine the damage.

"bullet" hole at the bottom left


Closeup of my "bullet" hole. It is not for the reverse sensor


My car was quite alright, to my surprise, considering the force that hit me. There was a tiny bullet like hole created by the LTA screw from Jess car. The screw must have absorbed most of the impact and had enough force to "punch" a hole into my rear.

2nd workshop


Ended up we need to pay




Part near the number plate concaved in


The most damaged part


Finally managed to ply the back door opened




Jess car was alot worse off. Beside the back that was dented quite badly by the impact, the front had also suffered some damages. Lady came out of the car in a daze and mumbled that she didn't see our brake lights and couldn't jam brake in time. She offered to pay us, but when we assessed that the damage was quite bad, she suggested that we followed her to the workshop.

Seeing that she was quite apologetic and sorry about the accident, we didn't throw any fuss about it nor scolded her. Things like this do happen, and we were mostly cool about it. We agreed and turned around to follow her to the workshop.

The Land cruiser that hit Jess


The lady driving the Land cruiser


The lady was quite worried


The place doing the repairs for RM850 (supposedly)


1st workshop looked at the dents, and said it would cost, and would require 2 days. But then later the owner said that he didn't have the time and asked us to go to another. 2nd workshop at first estimated the damage to be in the region of RM1K+. Interestingly, the mechanic said that she just came just last week. Lady said she would only pay for the back damage and that the front damage had nothing to do with her. I told her that I was already not claiming from her my part of the damage and just wanted her to settled the repair cost for Jess. It is not quite logically that the damage for the front was not forthcoming from her. If she hadn't come charging at us from the back, I wouldn't be hit too.

She made some calls, apparently to her husband. The man came about 20 minutes lately and tried to present it that we need to foot some of the payment too. I was quite annoyed that how it was that the lady hit us, and now we had to pay for some damages ourselves? He said we were all chinese and all that crab, and that it was an accident, so we were also bad lucked and had to suffer the payment. He said to split the repair to RM600, and the rest we would foot. I was quite annoyed at his bullshit story, as what if the repair would come to 1K, and then we had to foot the rest of the RM400? Mechanic said that the payment was settled at RM850 and there would be no change to the bill. Jess and I discussed a little and decided to report the matter. I had sensed that he was quite reluctant to go that route.

We drove to the police station . He came out and said that we all 3 had to report, and there would be a reporting fee of RM300 each. But after chatting with the policemen, we were told that the station didn't have any traffic police. We would need to go Kota Tinggi to make the report. Man seemed very friendly with the policemen and went into the room with them for awhile. Sensing this route wouldn't be good for us too, I decided then we would repair the car at RM600/RM250 split. Either way, we are screwed. Reporting wouldn't be good for Jess too, as she would also take a hit for insurance for hitting my back. And on top of that, an RM300 fee, each.

We were really quite at the mercy of the man, lady and the workshop mechanics. I didn't want to talk further with them, and we arranged to come back next week to collect the car. While we were leaving the place, we could hear them laughing and chatting happily, as if they had won a victory over us. Now the worry was that whether the workshop was in cohorts with man and lady and would do a bad job. We were caught in a situation that we didn't have much control over. Jess left the car in the workshop and hopped over to mine.

I want to plant this palm tree seed


Picture of Jess taking a picture


Thereafter, in an attempt to put the unhappy incident behind, I brought Jess to have coffee at Sebana Cove. There was really nothing we could do at this time, and worrying about it wouldn't help. After all, looking at the bright side, no one was hurt. And if RM250 could settle this accident and put it behind, it was quite alright. The weather was quite nice at the cove, and we were just enjoying the sights.

Lush growth of water plants


Throwing stones


Someone left a bamboo fishing rod here


Water gushing from somewhere


Super clear water


From there, I wanted to check out a spot on my GPS, that again, had the fishy icon. 2 weeks back, I noticed it but was in a hurry to leave the place. Since we were quite near, I said to recce a little and check it out. The road turning in was quite small and I missed it twice, going round and round. It turned into a dirt track, those with grass on the middle with 2 tracks for the wheels. Initially, it didn't look like much and i thot whoever put that icon there, was just inputing rubbish data. But when I got closer to the actual point, there was indeed a large pond/river running on the right. I came out of the car to check it out, and what I saw blew my mind. The place was beautiful as an aquarium, and the water was really crystal clear. Peering down, we could see green plants and small fishes swimming around. Wow, it was like paradise, and I had never seen such unspoilt fishing grounds. I was resisting the temptation to take out my rod. D was also excited and loved the place. I told her we would visit it again next week.



We make another stop at the fruit farm to let Jess have a look. But fruits were not quite in season and there wasn't much to see, or buy.



After that, it was the long drive back to my regular rest-stop. It was a good sign that Jess was quite hungry and didn't seem bothered too much by the accident. We walked a little as the plan was to head for Sin around 8+pm. My guess was that around that time, the jam should be managable. True enough, the jam at the Malaysian custom was very clear, just a 2-3 car queue. But coming out from the checkpoint, the queue to Singapore side was quite long. But I knew the best way to move the fastest, and was out of the jam in 15 minutes. So all in all, not that bad.

Driving Jess home, I was filtering out from a turn when a van horned at me, and overtook and cut me sharply. I was quite angry with such behavoir and overtook from the right and stared at him. But in my carelessness, I moved too close to the car in front who was stopping. When I turned my head, I realized that the car had stopped and slammed on my brakes. Thank heavens that my car stopped in time, and just avoided hitting the rear of the black car just by inches. A was shaking from the ordeal and I scolded myself for the carelessness. Luckily nothing happened. Otherwise, 2 accidents in a day would be black indeed.

The whole day was quite an experience. There would certainly be lots to talk about in the days to come.