04/04/2026

SATURDAY | APR 4, 2026

18 A life, a line we keep crossing H E was in his 30s. A father of three. His children are between nine and two years old – ages that still need bed time stories, steady hands and a father who comes home. But he won’t. P O T T U O N P O I N T

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Somewhere along a road in Klang, a life ended in an instant. Not because of fate, not because of some unavoidable tragedy but because someone made a decision that should never have been made – to get behind the wheel when they were not in control. And now, three children will grow up with a silence that will follow them for the rest of their lives. This is the part that should stop us in our tracks. Not the outrage that briefly floods social media, not the arguments that quickly turn ugly – but the human cost. A family altered forever. A future that has been quietly, violently taken away. Yet, almost as predictably as the tragedy itself, the conversation has drifted elsewhere. Away from accountability and towards race. There is something deeply unsettling about how quickly we reach for stereotypes when confronted with grief. The whispers become louder, the assumptions more confident as if pinning blame on a community somehow makes the loss easier to process. As if saying “this is what they are like” absolves the rest of us from confronting a much harder truth. But a drunk driver is not a race. Recklessness is not cultural. And irresponsibility does not belong to any one community. We have seen too many lives lost on Malaysian roads to pretend this is an isolated incident. Not just from alcohol but from drugs, from dangerous levels of fatigue, from the quiet arrogance of thinking “I can manage”. Each case is reported, mourned, debated – and then, slowly, forgotten. Until the next name replaces the last. But for the families left behind, there is no forgetting. Three children will grow up School halls fill earlier than usual. Students arrive in small groups, some quiet, some trying to look relaxed. Some parents wait outside, pretending not to be anxious. Some go inside together with their child, holding hands. Teachers move around with a different kind of energy, half administrative, half emotional. There is anticipation in the air, but also something heavier. Something unspoken. Because everyone knows that something more than results will be handed out that day. For many students, this is the first time they will be labelled: Best student. Average. Underperforming. Promising. Disappointing. The words may not always be spoken directly, but they form quickly in conversations, in comparisons, in the way people respond. A straight-A student walks out of the hall and suddenly becomes “the smart one”. Another who struggled begins to carry a quieter label, sometimes internalised long before anyone says it aloud. And what makes these labels powerful is not the moment they are given, but how long they stay. At that age, it is easy to believe that the

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“If you have been drinking, you do not drive. Not ‘just a short distance’, not ‘just this once’. You don’t.

Somewhere along a road in Klang, a life ended in an instant. Not because of fate, not because of some unavoidable tragedy but because someone made a decision that should never have been made – to get behind the wheel when they were not in control. – VIRALPIC

assumptions others make about you. It only responds to what you do in that moment behind the wheel. And in that moment, one decision can destroy everything. Tonight, somewhere, someone will make that same calculation. They will weigh inconvenience against risk and convince themselves they are capable. That nothing will happen. That they will make it home. For the sake of the three children who no longer have their father, we have to hope they choose differently. We have to demand that they do. Because we cannot keep standing at the edge of the same grief, over and over again, pretending it is new. It isn’t. And the cost is far too high. Hashini Kavishtri Kannan is the assistant news editor at theSun. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com Because the truth is, most people do not stay where their SPM results place them. Some who did exceptionally well will go on to thrive, as expected. Others may find themselves needing to relearn, to adjust, to rediscover direction. Some who did not do as well may take longer routes, but eventually find spaces where they excel. Life, unlike exams, does not grade on a single scale. So if you are receiving your results this week, take a moment to acknowledge them. They represent effort, discipline and a specific chapter of your life that you have completed. But be careful about the label that follows. You do not have to carry it longer than necessary. Because while this may be the first time the world tries to describe you in a single word or number, it will not be the last time you have the chance to redefine yourself. And that part, unlike your results, is entirely up to you. Always. Dr Nahrizul Adib Kadri is a professor of biomedical engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, the director of UM Press and the principal of Tuanku Bahiyah Residential College, Universiti Malaya. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

“just this once”. You don’t. There are choices. Call a ride. Sit it out. Leave your car behind. Go with someone who is sober. Small decisions, made in ordinary moments, that carry the weight of life and death. And still, too often, we choose otherwise. Perhaps because nothing has gone wrong before. Perhaps because we believe we are different. Until one day, we are not. And someone else pays the price. What we owe this man – this father – is not noise. It is not division. It is not the recycling of tired narratives that pit one community against another. What we owe him is something far more difficult: a shift in how we think and how we act. Because the road does not care who you are. It does not care what language you speak or what name you carry, or what

measuring time differently now – before and after. Before their father left home and after he never returned. The nine year-old will understand enough to feel the weight of absence. The two-year-old may not remember his face, only stories told by others. And in between, a childhood reshaped by loss. This is why the conversation cannot afford to be shallow. It is not enough to condemn drunk driving in passing, only to return to the same habits the next weekend. It is not enough to treat each incident as a headline detached from the next. Because the truth is painfully simple – these deaths are preventable. No one is asking for perfection. People will go out, they will drink, they will celebrate. That is part of life. But responsibility does not end where convenience begins. If you have been drinking, you do not drive. Not “just a short distance”, not

COMMENT by Dr Nahrizul Adib Kadri

The first label: Best student, average or disappointing? THE day SPM results are released always carries a particular kind of tension. gradually. Effort feels less meaningful if the outcome seems predetermined.

label is accurate. That it reflects something permanent. That being “good at school” means you will always be ahead, and not doing well means you have somehow fallen behind for good. But life does not work that way. Some people are good at structured exams. They understand patterns. They manage time well. They perform under pressure. These are valuable skills. But they are not the only skills that matter, and they are certainly not fixed traits that determine everything that comes after. Others take longer to find their rhythm. They may not perform as strongly in an exam setting, but they think differently. They adapt in other ways. They grow at a pace that is less visible in a results slip. The problem is not the existence of results. Assessment has its place, of course. The problem is when results quietly turn into identity. Because once a label sticks, it begins to shape behaviour. The“top student”feels the pressure to remain one. Mistakes become heavier. Choices become safer. There is less room to explore, because there is something to protect. The “average” student may begin to lower expectations. Not always consciously, but

And those who are labelled as “struggling” may, unfortunately, start to believe that improvement is unlikely, even when it is entirely possible. Looking back, I realise how many of us carried these early labels longer than we needed to. Some of us spent years trying to live up to them. Others spent just as long trying to escape them. But in both cases, the label stayed in the background, quietly influencing decisions. What SPM measures is performance at a particular time, place, and under very specific conditions. It does not measure curiosity. It does not measure resilience. It does not measure how someone responds to failure, or how they grow when given time and space. More importantly, it does not measure who you will become. That part remains open. And that openness can feel uncomfortable, because it means the version of you today, with or without the label, does not have to be the final one. Perhaps the more useful approach is to treat results as information, not identity. They tell you something about where you are, not who you are. They offer feedback, not definition.