New Post has been published on The Rakyat Post
New Post has been published on http://www.therakyatpost.com/columnists/2015/02/24/getting-a-taste-of-festive-jam/
Getting a taste of festive jam
I THOUGHT by setting out early in the journey to my in-laws’ home in Malacca on the first day of the Lunar New Year would steer me clear of traffic jams. If I could get out of the capital by 10am, the 150km journey would be a joy ride, I had reasoned.
When we left home at a quarter to ten, seeing the empty roads in KL, I was confident of reaching Malacca in less than two hours. However, when I reach the Sungai Besi Toll, the sight of long queues to get into the Touch ‘n Go lanes hinted that my expectation was in the state of touch-and-go. As I passed the toll gates, I was still enthusiastic upon seeing most drivers kept to their lanes with discipline and courtesy. Only a few show-offs were throttling up on the fast lane.
When we reached Nilai at almost 10.45am, traffic slowed to spurts of starts and stops. Switching on Waze, I decided to see how far the crawl had extended. When the Waze moods started popping up along my route, I sensed bad news. Alerts showing heavy traffic from Nilai to Senawang told me to brace for the worse. A call to PLUSline confirmed it.
As the good weather brought the sun out in full blast, I could see much impatience on the road. Errant drivers started to jump queue by switching lanes and the less patient ones even headed for the emergency lane to fast track their drive. Those who obeyed the traffic rules watched in frustration as the errant counterparts sped past them. Had the police been there that afternoon, I was sure the amount of traffic summonses given out would be highly rewarding to their coffers. But there were none, so the offenders had a field day.
By the time we reached the Air Keroh rest area for a break at 1.45pm, another driver travelling to Batu Pahat said he had taken almost five hours to get there from Hulu Yam. There were no major road accidents that morning, save for two or three vehicles that were floored by overheated radiators. The unusually heavy traffic on PLUS (and almost every expressway in the peninsula, I was told) that day was due to holidaymakers taking advantage of the long weekend.
The traffic congestion between Nilai and Seremban that morning, as I saw it, was due to both rest areas there being packed. Motorists, who held their bladders and avoided the two preceding rest areas, were forced to stop at the one in Senawang, which was already jammed with cars and people. The motorists queuing to get into this rest area caused the backup all the way to Nilai, I believe. However, the main culprits for this year’s festive jam were the same as in previous years — the queue jumpers and those with penchant for using the emergency lanes.
In Malacca, on the second day of the new year, the town centre was almost at a standstill, packed with crowd and cars. The only vehicles on the roads there that afternoon were from Johor, Wilayah Persekutuan, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. There were only a few Singapore-registered cars. Maybe our friends from the across the causeway were smarter this time — with their dollar two-and- a-half times stronger than the ringgit, they probably checked into hotels in the town centre and walked around instead. Malaccans stayed at home.
For someone who knew Malacca’s roads quite well, I was humbled that afternoon. I realised that one should not mess with Malacca — especially on a festive occasion. I had to pick up some kids from Dataran Pahlawan that afternoon and had thought of outsmarting the traffic jams by using the coastal road from Kota Laksamana to Dataran Pahlawan via the Tengkera Bridge. Again I was wrong.
A poorly-timed traffic light at the bottom of the Tengkera bridge just outside Mahkota Hotel cost me almost 45 minutes to get across the bridge, less than a kilometre at most. As traffic on the bridge was reduced to a standstill, impatient motorists from outside Malacca turned to a motorcycle lane barely two metres wide on the left.
When some motorists queuing in the main lanes decided to block the pathway of these errant drivers with their vehicles, the law-breakers retaliated with stunt driving — they drove with one set of their wheels on the foot-high kerb. Several four-wheel drive vehicles led the illegal charge and before long, even the Kancil drivers had gathered enough courage to test their vehicles’ suspension.
On my return to Kuala Lumpur on the third day, I turned to Waze when I found myself smack in the jam along the Port Dickson coastal road. The journey took me much longer than it would have if I had used the highway on a non-festive day, but at least, I got home with less frustration.
I had a good laugh when I shared my experiences with my friends back in KL days later. They had a taste of the traffic jam in their journey up north and to the east coast using the highways. Although they were lucky to have the presence of police, which helped in a smoother traffic flow and fewer errant drivers, the only solution to get out of future festive jams, we all agreed, was to stay at home. Otherwise, you would have to start your travel very early in the morning or very late at night. Even so, there is no guarantee of not being outsmarted by hordes of other drivers.
To hope for Malaysian drivers to drive courteously on highways was futile, one of my friends said. Queue jumpers and emergency lane fiends will rear their ugly heads once they sense there is no police presence. These days, with Waze to alert these people of impending police operations ahead, the errant drivers have become more daring.
Maybe the highway operators can use their closed-circuit television cameras to catch these chronic traffic offenders in the act, especially when traffic police cannot be deployed.
By reducing errant driving, the operators will be doing all highway users a favour and reduce congestion and accidents.
Otherwise, I think they owe highway users a reimbursement of their toll charges because apart from providing a safe and comfortable journey, highways are also meant to take users to their destination in a shorter time than traditional routes.
