On Driving and Accidents

Source:http://warnawarnimalaysia.blogspot.com/2008/05/zebra-crossing.html

OK time for a quiz! You see a zebra crossing what do you do?
a) Stop for pedestrians
b) Keep going
c) Never seen one
d) What’s a zebra crossing?
If you’ve answered (a) you’re probably not driving in Malaysia. Honestly, if you’re a Malaysian driver, in Malaysia you would be answering (b) (c) or (d) and I don’t blame you because if you were a Malaysian driver, you would probably have a very flagrant disregard for traffic laws. I of course am no exception. That of course leads to the very high accident rates we have in our proud nation. Take a look at this table:

Kemalangan 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Jan-Jun
Maut 5,678 5,623 5719 5672 3,018
Parah 7,444 7,600 7373 7384 3,632
Ringan 33,147 25,905 15596 13979 6,690
Kerosakan 280,546 289,136 312564 336284 170,357
Jumlah 326,815 328,264 341,252 363,319 183,357

Source: http://www.rmp.gov.my/

You would notice that the Royal Malaysian Police decided not to include statistics for 2009 or the 2nd half of 2008 for that matter. Probably decided to go for a cup of tea. But if u take a close look at the statistics, you would be able to see a rising trend in the number of accidents. If one were to extrapolate the given data, in the year 2020 we would have roughly 500,000 accidents a year! We have about half a million cars and another half a million motorcycles on our roads in 2008 so at 183, 357 accidents for the first half of 2008 means that for every 100 cars on the road, there are 18 accidents and that’s only for the first half of the year. Assuming the trend continues, there would be 36 accidents per 100 cars by the end of 2008. I’ve not even factored in the festive season.

So we’ve established that we have a very high accident rate vis-à-vis the number of cars on the road. Which leads to one pressing question. Why in the world do we have so many road accidents? First of all is of course our road infrastructure. Far from being perfect, has led to many a car accident. But of course once you your off the motorways and into the B roads, you’d probably adapt your driving to suit the roads. You wouldn’t drive recklessly on kampung roads would you? So while on the surface, it may seem that our roads are to blame, it isn’t. At least not entirely. Next you have road builders and road repairmen who decide that the best time to get on with their jobs is between 8-10 am and 4-6pm. They also feel that it is sufficient to place only one road sign to indicate that they are doing nothing but closing down the roads for our apparent future convenience. This road sign is usually placed about 500cm away from their roadwork. But of course as a driver you’re expected to be vigilant on the road. Which means you have to watch your surroundings carefully. Which means we can’t blame them entirely as well.

So lets move on to something more pertinent. Speed. Speed kills! Apparently. That is why the government regularly holds campaigns to educate the public on the dangers of speeding. These campaigns usually come about during festive seasons. You may never have realized this, but occasionally during festivities our speed limit is reduced to 80. Of course nobody even knows that our speed limit is actually 90. This is because we as Malaysians see speeding as a right nay a way of life. But that’s not the problem is it? The problem is that there are some people who drive incredibly slowly congesting the road every time they have the urge to start their cars and go for a ride because they think that the slower you are the safer. Some drivers are so slow in fact that if you were to put a pot of soil in their cars, they would be able to grow taugehs every single time they go marketing. So you have some insane drivers driving at 160 and then you have some law-abiding citizens driving at 90 and some schmucks who drive at a very brisk 20. This causes accidents because people would be weaving in and out. Therefore I propose that instead of having a speed limit on our roads, as jerks that speed would never abide by them, have speed minimums instead. Keep the minimum to say 120. That way our roads would be safer and less congested. There. Killing two birds with one stone.

Like that is ever going to happen. Which leads to another thing. When we shift over to the outer lane, most of the time we get frustrated because there is usually a balding and fat middle-aged man driving with his 12-year-old girlfriend hogging the road. What happens then? We shift back to the inner lane in a futile attempt to undertake him. We shift back out and then back in. Weaving in and out of traffic in order to get ahead of this pig headed jerk. These people should be executed. That way not only will we have less congested roads; we would have effectively gotten rid of all the pedophiles in Malaysia.