Much has been made of the new point-to-point cameras that have been sprouting up on the Malaysian highways over the past year. Basically they calculate an average for you speed between them and then can issue a speeding ticket if you go to fast. We wrote about them a few weeks ago.
The powers-that-be would have us believe that this is to reduce the death toll on Malaysian roads. I don’t agree, I think that technology has moved on and cars are safer now than they ever have been. For me this is just policing for profits. Ss Jeremy Clarkson once said, “Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary…that’s what gets you!”
Of course I understand that reaction time comes into it, the faster you are going the longer the distance you will travel from the time you recognize a danger to the time you place your foot onto the brake. In fact if you are driving at 90km/h, you cover about 26 metres per second.
Last year up to November Malaysia recorded 585,000 crashes that resulted in the deaths of 5939 motorists. But the real statistic here is that almost 70% of the deaths were motorcyclists. A staggering 4014 riders hit the road for the last time! Worse, the vast majority were youths.
Just drive for a minute or two on any Malaysian road and there will be some motorcyclist lane splitting at speed between the traffic, there will be a motorcyclist who meanders across the road as he/she answers an urgent text message, or are simply not paying attention.
The answer is simple, stop lane splitting, increase the age for obtaining a bike-license and do some real enforcing of the rules by the PDRM (Malaysian Police). There are too many examples of ad hoc ineffective measures that put a financial burden on experienced and safe drivers, am I getting a little hot under the collar about this, yes, yes I am as I have recently received a ticket through the post for travelling at 92km/h in an 80km/h zone on a highway in dry conditions in broad daylight and low traffic conditions.
I will give you a great example of Public Officialdom Lunacy. Many years ago in Korea someone had the good idea of having a ‘count-down’ clock at red traffic lights. Apparently we get less stressed when we know the change is coming than if we do not.
Other countries decided that this was a good idea and adopted the idea only they were going to improve upon it and added a countdown clock for the green to tell us when it was going to change to red.
Now the clever folk in Korea monitored the red-light countdown and found that it reduced accidents, they also experimented with a green countdown and found that it increased accidents so they dint implement.
It almost goes without saying when you are approaching a green light and you see the clock approaching zero, what do you do? Yes you put your foot down to try and beat the red which is the cause of so many accidents.
Jeeze Louise!
