Money, money, money.

Today I read of an accident in which RM75,000 worth of coins from a steel container in a car spilled onto the North-South Highway. According to the papers, this happened on Tuesday, the 18th of January.

The highway has always been one of the most dangerous place for any person outside his vehicle unless proper signs and barricades have been put up to slow down vehicles speeding along this busy road.

Yet, when the people traveling along this busy highway saw the coins roll across the highway in all directions, every caution was thrown to the wind as they stopped their own vehicles, got down from them and rushed around to collect as many as they could all those coins. That, despite the owner of the coins telling them to stop collecting his coins.

Any of those people could have been killed by one of the many vehicles traveling along that same route. No, they cared not for their own safety or their lives. After all, what is the use of a life without the opportunity to gather some of the thousands of coins being strewn on the road.

Yet, none of them were killed. It goes to show how actually careful and attentive our drivers truly are. Or was it the numerous coins that got them all to stop so that they could also take part in the collection of free coins on the highway?

And when it came to money, all those coin collectors were fast to gather up as many coins as they could into whatever containers they could use. They used almost anything to hold those coins. And, the excitement could have lasted a long time, had they not been interrupted by the arrival of the police.

And here is one good reason for wearing a helmet. The motorist found good use for them as they certainly were big enough to hold a few hundred coins. They must have thanked their lucky stars to have such a useful container for the collection of hundreds of coins each.

It is in such circumstances that we see how reckless people are. It is at such times that we understand the lure of money.

As for me, the opportunity is unavailable and therefore I turn my thoughts to the possible reasons for transporting so many coins in a vehicle. According to the owner, it was to be distributed to stores in Malacca. Nevertheless, in our modern times when the nearest bank which can supply the coins is just a few kilometres away from most places in town, where is the need to transport coins from one state to another? I find this most strange. But then, as someone once wrote, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.