Driving off and on Malaysia’s roads

Press, 13 June 1978, Page 21

Driving off and on Malaysia’s roads

‘The Press’on the move

ISAYLOR HILLARY recently flew to Singapore with Air New Zealand, travelled by train to Penang, and drove back to Singapore in a rental car. He discovered that driving in Malaysia is very different from driving in Christchurch . . .

New Zeaiauueis «uu u.c ... - lalaysia tell a holiday visitor: I reat the whole country as a defensive driving test.” „,.9, ne lon g-term resident said: when the locals get out on the roads, either they’re all mad. or they have the most incredible, fatalistic belief that nothing can barm them.”

These generalisations are unkind to Malaysia s many excellent drivers who P e „ or ? n feats of dexterity between oullock carts and timber trucks which make an observer close his eyes. But Malaysians do have a special style of driving. They travel fast, they overtake with abandon on narrow, blind corners, and they depend on horns and the quick reactions of other drivers to stay alive. N°t °f them survive. Head-on collisions are frequent, even though the roads are generally good. The authorities sometimes mount the wreckage beside the road as a warning on dangerous sections. It has little visible effect on driving habits. Confronted with Malaysian drivers who overtake in dangerous situations, who travel too close and too fast, there is little the visitor can do but join the game. Pull towards the centre line in an attempt to stop them passing on nasty comers and they scoot through on the inside. Pull well to the left and slow down to let them pass and two will pass abreast When oncoming traffic forces both to pull in suddenly, there 'u n ? w * lere to go but into the rubber, the jungle, or the oil palms which line the roads.

But a visitor can be thankful for the courtesy of many of the drivers of the huge logging trucks and rubber trucks which shift Malaysia's principal exports to the coast. High in their cabs, and secure in the size of their vehicles, they feed a constant stream of information to cars behind them.

A blinking left-hand indicator on a truck travelling at 50 m.p.h.. which obviously has no intention of turning

Mr Hillary is a member of the editorial staff of “The Press.”

left, means the driver can see it is safe to pass. A right-hand indicator blinking means it is not safe.

Two points of warning: The car immediately behind the truck can see the flashing signals; those further back may not and so will attempt to overtake anyhow. Somehow, room has to be found to let them squeeze back in line. And a Malaysian “truckie’s” idea of conditions in which it is safe to overtake may not be the same as those ot a New Zealand vsitor.

For all that, driving in Malaysia can make for a great holiday. Distances are relatively short. From Kangar, in the far north, to Johore Baharu, in the far south, is only 560 miles. The whole of peninsula Malaya is about the same size as the South Island. Hotels and rest houses are available, even in small towns; many of them are surprisingly cheap and comfortable. From the main road sj'stem down the western side of the peninsula, detours can be made to the cooler hill stations of the Cameron Highlands and Bukit Fraser (Fraser’s Hill). Both involve long stretches of winding jungle road — and a good deal of caution — but both repay a visit. At Fraser’s Hill, however, the last five miles of road are one-way. Travel up is allowed for half an hour, starting on each odd-numbered hour (9 a.m., 11 a.m. and so on). Travel down is allowed for half an hour on the evennumbered hours. Fortunately, for those who arrive at The Gap, at the bottom of the one-way stretch, at the wrong time, there is a comfortable coffee house. An extended family of quarrelsome monkeys live in the jungle nearby to entertain waiting motorists.

Several of the oil companies produce

excellent road maps of Malaysia. Reliable street maps of the cities are less easily obtained. Maps exist, but they seldom show the one-way streets and no map publisher could keep up with the changes brought about by the creation of flyovers, bypasses, and constantly shifting road works in cities such as Kuala Lumpur and Johore Baharu. When in doubt, stop on the outskirts of the city and pay for information by buying petrol. Or ask a policeman. A

genial Malay “copper” on a bicycle, complete with truncheon and pistol, may look incongruous, but he is generally a mine of- helpful advice, some of it in English. At the end of the journey south, be prepared for a veritable maze when trying to find the approach to the causeway which leads to Singapore. The causeway is visible enough for the last few miles round the foreshore of the strait between Singapore and the mainland. It stays visible through the rising skyline -of Johore Baharu, but actually finding a way to drive on to it involves a good deal of the Pooh and Piglet exercise of “tracking one’s own tracks” in what seems like a series of circles.

In fairness, it must be said that signposting on the open road is generally good and the naming of streets in towns is no more random, or illegible, than in New Zealand cities.

The old English system of milestones is also a helpful guide. In fact. Malaysia has adopted the word for stone — batu — to mean mile.

Sometimes there seem to be too many milestones. The old stones are still there, giving distances in miles, in both directions, from major towns. They are interspersed now with newer stones giving distances, not necessarily from the same towns, in kilometres. And mixed up with all of them are stones giving bridge numbers which can be easily misinterpreted as distances. Learn a few basic traffic phrases in Bahasa Malay, the national language. Some signs are in several languages, including English, but many are not. At the very least, it helps to know that “Ikut Kiri” means Keep Left (Malaysians drive on the left); “Berehenti” means Stop; “Awas” (often accompanied by a skull) means Danger. It does no harm, either, to learn a handful of polite expressions. Most guide books will include basic phrases such as “Salamat pagi” for good morning and “Salamat jalan” for goodbye. (Literally, it means travel in peace). Be prepared for changes in spelling of similar signs, even within a few

miles. “Simpang Ke.” used on motorways to indicate “exit to,” turns into “Simpang Ka” for no obvious reason “Johore Baharu” has several official spellings. The reason is that Malaysia is still stabilising its national language, and still working out definitive transliterations of words from Arabic script to the English alphabet. Watch for “Tempat Larangan.” which means prohibited place. To make the point this sign usually has a graphic drawing of a guard shooting an intruder. It appears most frequently on military bases, but it can also bob up suddenly round docks, railway yards, and electrical installations. Malaysia still has terrorists at large and the security forces treat trespassers seriously. Be prepared, too, for road blocks, local curfews, and snap searches by the army or police, especially after a terrorist incident in an area. Ordinary crime also exists on the roads. A few hours before we drove from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca an express bus was forced off the road by a car and the passengers robbed at gun point. In the towns, instead of parking meters, spaces are policed by youths with books of tickets who each patrol 20 or 30 spaces, a system which seems to work and which must provide a kind of unemployment benefit. But in free carparks, outside -hotels for instance, be on guard against eager pirate parking attendants who make private enterprise demands for parking fees, but have no official status.

Youngsters on motor scooters, especially, weave to very fine tolerances. To break into traffic at an intersection or at one of the frequent roundabouts a driver has little option but to use his horn and keep going. Three-wheeler ice-cream carts, bullock carts, religious processions, and

inexplicable one-way streets all confuse a New Zealand visitor. But Malaysia is almost totally free of the worst hazard on New Zealand roads — the drunk driver. It remains a Muslim country in which drunks — on foot or behind the wheel — are almost unknown. Even the large Chinese community (about 40 per cent of the population) seem capable of drinking brandy and whisky with their meals like wine, without showing the symptoms of drunkenness. And that is a big plus in favour of the charms of driving in Malaysia.