Dream of a Safer Road in Malaysia

Roads in Malaysia is not safe. Most roads are built without shoulder and even more built without an emergency lane.

Malaysia Highway Codes and Road Transport Acts are so outdated that, most of our roads and highway looks more like deathtraps than medium of moving from point A to point B. One of the reason why many Malaysians perished in our tarmac roads is that our road is really dangerous.

On the back of my head I could list 6 dangerous features that is found in our roads, expressway or highway:

1. No separate lane for Motorbikes.


2. Dangerous fixtures erected too near to the roads.


3. Lack of emergency lanes on most roads.


4. Lack of pedestrian or cycling paths.


5. Poor quality of construction.


6. Poor planning.

1. Separate lane for Motorbikes

It is truly dangerous to have motorbikes sharing the same roads with cars, trucks, and buses. Every festive season, during the police Ops Sikap, it is always motorcyclists ranked top in number of accidents fatal or non-fatal. And every time, the blame is put on the road users.

It might be true that the road users should bear certain responsibility, but it is also true that there were no concerted effort on the authority part to rectify the issue to help reduce such accidents. In fact, the solution to this problem has been in existence in Malaysia: separate Motorcycle lanes.

Unfortunately, such facility is only found in part of Kuala Lumpur and not anywhere else in Malaysia. Guessed it is easier to ask motorcyclists to drive more carefully than to provide them with a safer road.

2. Dangerous fixtures found near roads

You don't have to spend any effort to find them, they are easily spotted on a lot of roadsides. Lamp posts, electrical and telephone poles, drains, billboards, and towers can be found erected right at the road sides, junctions or in some cases in the middle of the road. Cars, motorcyclists, trucks, buses and vans have to drive with utmost vigilance to avoid crashing into them. In one of the tolled highway on the east coast, drains were built right next to the over taking lane without any space or shoulder to separate the drain away from the road. This is dangerous especially on the highway.

The national Highway Code needed to be updated that not only there must be a guideline specifying minimum distances such fixtures like drains or poles should be positions away from the road, there should also be guidelines established how such fixtures to be erected so that in case of a vehicle crashing into them, the vehicle would not be split into half, killing everyone on boards. Our highway could really be made safer for the user, if poles at road sides are not made from concretes or stainless steel like they are now.

3. Emergency Lane

There should be two emergency lanes for highway and 1 emergency lane for trunk roads and expressway.

The reason is obvious, for highway, one emergency lane for vehicle breakdowns and one for the use of law enforcement or emergency units. For expressway and trunk roads, there should be at least 1 emergency lane for well, you know emergency. Currently, most trunk roads and expressway, do not have such facility.

The existence of emergency lane would make most of our trunk roads much more safer than they currently are now.

4. Pedestrian and Cycling Paths

Our cities and rural areas are not safe for people on foot and people on bicycles. Try walking in any town in Malaysia. Most of the time, you would find yourself walking on the shoulder of the tarmac road or on the road itself because there were no pedestrian paths built. This is dangerous. When will the authority wake up from their slumber and offer the man on his foot or the woman on hers a safe path on the road? Hey, people on foot are road users too!

5. Poor Quality of Roads Constructed.

Aside from pot holes, sinking manholes, dangerous corners and dangerous junctions. We also have to deal with roads with uneven surfaces. A well built and properly maintained roads will go a long way in offering road users a much safer road.

6. Poor planning.

How many times when you are driving, and you found the road merges, not from two lanes to one, but from six lanes to two? Such abrupt lane mergers are extremely dangerous.

Then, when the road are diverging from one lane to two, it diverges in such a way that if you don't change lane, you are ended up in the fast lane on the right, not the slow lane on the left. This contributes to traffic jam. Common sense would tell us that when a road diverges from one lane to two lanes, it should diverge naturally so that the car need not change lane to end up in the slow lane. But alas, you would find the contrary in many roads in Malaysia. This is a manifestation of poor planning, poor designs, and poor construction quality on the part of the authority.