Malaysians share their funny experiences getting stopped at PDRM roadblocks.

When driving, we often find ourselves worrying about being caught in a roadblock, because jam. Ugh. Though most of the time, the abang polis just points their flashlight right at us before waving us through, sometimes we aren’t so lucky and might end up getting stopped.

And when that happens, we often find ourselves driving away after paying an official or ‘unofficial’ fine… except for these 5 Malaysians who walked away with much more than just a “saman”, but also with an interesting story to tell.

1. Suspected in being a gang… the “jam tangan” gang.

A few years ago, UiHua was on his way back home when he was stopped by the police; who at the time, were running an operation to apprehend gang members. And since gang members are usually best identified by their tattoos, it’s no surprise that UiHua looked like he had a top spot on KL’s wanted list. For context, here’s what he looks like:

As usual, they began to question him about where he was going and what he was doing, to which he was able to answer without much issues. But then, one of the police officers saw the tattoo of a watch on UiHua’s wrist, which led him to question what kind of gang tattoo it was.

However, instead of clarifying the true meaning of his watch tattoo with the police officer, UiHua decided instead to tell the officer that he belonged to “geng jam tangan”. 🤦

Unfortunately for UiHua, the police officer did not understand his joke and he was pulled over to the side of the road. The police officers then conducted a search of his car, where upon they found a mysterious bag of… fine white powder. 

UiHua, who worked as a chemical product salesperson at the time, used to carry around samples of the products he had to sell; one of which was the fine white powder. 

“As the police officer scooped his finger into the bag and took a small amount of the powder to presumably sniff or taste, I had to yell out that it “caused cancer”. He then slowly lowered his finger back into the back and dusted it off.” – UiHua

He then showed the police officers his employment card, along with the product safety manuals to prove that it was indeed NOT any sort of illegal substance, which they eventually believed. However, that still wasn’t the end of UiHua’s ordeal because now, they had to search him.

To ensure that he wasn’t involved in any gang-based activities, the police asked UiHua to begin explaining the meaning behind each and every single one of his visible tattoos. And when it was time to inspect the upper half of his body, the inspector at the scene lifted up his shirt to reveal…

(C/W: Male nipples)

Needless to say, the rest of the search went along in a breeze and UiHua got home safely in due time, without a scratch to anything else except his dignity.

2. A group of guys in a car that looked… ✨fabulous✨

As progressive as we’d like to think we are, our country is still kinda weird about the whole homosexuality thing– but that’s a can of worms we won’t be opening in this article.

The reason why we’re referencing this is because fellow CILISOS writer Jake and his friends were stopped and questioned by the po-po for looking suspicious. And when we say suspicious, we mean that the cops thought they were up to shady… er… non-straight things.

“When the police stopped us and asked us to get out of the car, the first thing that one of them said to me (in malay) was “are you guys gay?”. Obviously, since none of us actually swung that way, we said no but they seemed unconvinced.”  – Jake

Regardless of the fact that none of the guys in the car were actually LGBTQ+, the police ran a car-search anyway and found a box of condoms in the glove compartment. So, they questioned the group of guys even more about what the condoms were for, to which they replied that it was “for sex”. Because what else would they be used for?

Anyways, the coppers were still unconvinced and saw that Jake was holding a plastic bag, so they asked him to open it, to which it revealed a bunch of dried squid from his recent trip to Pangkor. And eventually, since there didn’t seem to be any further evidence/proof of the guys’ apparent homosexuality, the coppers reluctantly let them go.

Nonetheless, that incident left Jake questioning if he was giving off the wrong vibes.

3. Pretending to be sober… but forgot something REALLY important.

This incident happened to the writer’s friend who wants to stay anonymous (for obvious reasons), so for this we’ll be calling him Mi(num). So, Mi was driving his friends home from the clubs after a long night of drinking and partying, when they came across a police roadblock… Let’s just say that there were no sober people in the car that night.

“We could have avoided the roadblock because that street was known to have blocks, but we were fairly confident that we weren’t going to be that unlucky. Oh boy, were we wrong.” – Mi, to CILISOS.

As they pulled up to the roadblock, they tried to act calm and confident when questioned by the police officer. He started asking if they had been drinking, which they all actively denied… until he brought up the fact that they didn’t have their headlights on the entire time.

Realizing they were in deep trouble, they decided to confess that they were indeed under the influence of alcohol and had to bribe their way out of the situation. Needless to say, Mi learned a very valuable lessons that day: Never drive while intoxicated.

4. The LOST supper.

Back when she was still working in a media-company-which-shall-not-be-named, Amrita went out to buy supper from a nearby mamak for one of her talents. And as she was on her way back to work (close to midnight, btw), she got stopped by the boys in navy blue who caught her for not wearing her seatbelt. 

Wanting to get back to her hungry talent as quickly as possible, she asked the police officers for a saman… but then they smelled the talent’s supper sitting on the passenger seat of her car.

“I wanted them to give me a fine, but they preferred the maggi goreng.” – Amrita, to CILISOS.

Unfortunately, that meant that Amrita’s talent had to go hungry that night. But we do hope that the abang polis were at least able to satisfy their empty bellies, NGL we’d be super tempted by a steaming packet of maggi goreng too 🤤

Strangely though, Amrita wasn’t the only one to get out of a roadblock with a super good deal, because…

5. Paid a bribe… and got a discount too??

Botak was on his way home from a late night at work. Seeing as there were no cars around, he ran a red light… without realizing that there was a roadblock up ahead. Of course, he was then asked to pull over by the police officers who watched him pull off that incredibly dangerous stunt and questioned.

After a few questions, the police officer eventually started asking for a bribe. However, since the incident occurred around the end of the month, it meant that Botak was completely strapped for cash. Refusing to believe him, the police officer asked Botak how much cash he had on him, to which he showed his near-empty wallet to the police officer with only 20 ringgit in it.

Desperate to earn something out of this, the police officer accepted the 20 ringgit bribe… until Botak daringly requested for a reduction.

“I asked him if I could get 5 ringgit back, because I needed to pump petrol to get back home. He actually felt bad for me, and then gave me the 5 ringgit I asked for.” – Botak, to CILISOS.

All in all, the police officer walked away with 15 ringgit, and Botak managed to pump enough petrol to get back home safely. We’ve heard about getting discounts for our summons, but this was on a whole new level.

Love them or hate them, they’re still around… and for good reason.

Funny stories aside, police roadblocks exist for a reason: To catch people like Mi and Botak, who might be breaking the law and endangering other people in the process. But while the roadblocks are needed, the bribery isn’t. And in instances where there is no *cough cough* duit kopi *cough cough* being exchanged, they’re very effective in keeping us safe. Don’t believe us? Just take a look at this video:

But as hilarious as some of these stories are, if you feel that things are starting to turn from a funny story into something more serious, it’ll probably be best for you to know your rights when you get stopped by the police. For more information on what the police legally can and cannot do at a roadblock, you can check out this article written by our friends at AskLegal.

Oh. And most importantly, always remember to drive sober, safely, and DON’T bribe the cops during a roadblock, k? It could get you in serious trouble.