The foreigner and Expatriate guide to driving in Malaysia

A couple of friends from overseas have emailed me to ask where they can rent cars and perhaps have a copy of the Malaysian Road Rules book. This stumped me as I searched high and low but seems that said book does not exist. However I have heard from a few villagers that the legendary book is around but has not been sighted since 1904.

Hence for the benefit of those interested in driving in Malaysia for the first time I have come up with a short FAQ to make your experience a pleasurable one. These set of rules have been adopted since 1901. No that is not a typo.

Q. What is the number one rule to observe?
A. The most important rule to observe is that you must be ahead of all cars regardless of your destination. All other rules subservient to this rule.

Q. Does Malaysia follow the UK (left side of the road) or US (right side of the road) to drive on?
A. Drivers drive on the left side. However only 99% follow this rule. 0.8% of drivers drive on the right side. And the remaining 0.2% are on the left most side, reversing because they missed their turning.

Q. What are the white lines painted on the road for?
A. These back during British colonial days were to help drivers stay in a straight line. Today in modern Malaysia, these lines are decorations because Malaysia is pretty and the government gladly uses up millions of Ringgit each year to decorate Malaysia Truly Asia.

Q. What are double lines painted on the road for?
A. These indicate that you may overtake when you are getting impatient because the car in front of you is too slow. Hence you can achieve the number 1 rule: Drivers must be infront at all times.

Q. I see Malaysia also have Emergency lanes on highways. What are they for?
A. This lane is only to be used during an emergency. Example you are late for work, late for class, your wife is about to give birth but is already safely at the hospital, you need to go to the toilet because of all that curry chicken you had for lunch. Driving on this lane permits you to drive at double the speed of other cars.

Q. Do traffic lights follow the rules in other countries?
A. Almost.
Green light means you can go.
Yellow/Amber means you must step on the pedal to accelerate.
Red means you must stop but only if there are other cars or a suspicious looking white vehicle parked near the lights. If not you may zoom as though the lights are green.

Q. What does "Dilarang masuk mean" ?
A. In Malay in means No Entry. It simply translates to "short-cut". Use this route to get to a parking spot the quickest way.

Q. On the highway, what does "pandu cermat" mean?
A. It translates to drive smart. You must drive as close as possible to the car infront so that other cars may not slip in. This also gives you an advantage because you will be close enough to overtake so you can achieve rule no 1. If you cannot see the drivers face, no if you cannot see the chili stuck between the drivers teeth in their rear view mirror you are not driving close enough.

Q. What is the speed limit on Malaysian highways?
A. The what?

Q. What are the road signs with the numbers 60, 80, 110 on your highways?
A. Those indicate the amount of money you have to pay a police officer in case they stop you. If you ask the police officer what was your offense, he or she may not know because no one really does. But just in case, slip that amount of money towards them give or take a few ringgit. This fine is then declared paid on the spot.

Q. Is that not a bribe?
A. No it is not. That is all. Now shooh! or "Jalan" as they say in Malaysia.

Q. Does a car need some form of WOF/COF roadworthy certificate to be able to drive it?
A. No a car does not need a WOF or COF or WTF or some type of certificate to drive it. As long as you have a valid drivers licence and valid road tax sticker you can drive the vehicle in any condition it is in. You must place as many cushions and plush toys at the back as you can to block your view outside the rear window.

Q. At some junctions, there are yellow boxes filled with diagonal lines. What are these for?
A .When traffic is building up, you cannot leave this box empty. You must drive your car onto this box and not allow any car to turn into the junction because if you are not able to be infront of others you must not allow other cars to reach their destination.

Q. Are handsfree headsets required when you need to asnwer phone calls while driving?
A. No. Handsfree sets are not required. You must answer the call to discuss with your kerlig (colleague) the limitations of the GXXS system because it cannot tally with the YXVVR system other companies use because your boss did not approve of the signing of the SSATP form 4 years ago. You were not able to voice out your concerns because your boss was a big fat tyrant and will have had you terminated if you did not go and pick up his children from their triangle music class.

Q. At a junction, is there a queue system?
A. No. It is optional to queue up. If you see any space avaible infront of that car, you may proceed to the very front of the queue because hey, you have to be at the front (see rule 1)

Malaysian motorists and motorcylists

*honk*honk*
Can you in the fugly Toyota Vios please get off the phone and concentrate on driving? I thought if you owned a Toyota you would at least have brains but then I suppose not since your Vios is just a base line model.


The image you see above is my artistic capabilities of drawing a motorcycle lane tunnel on our famous Federal Crapway, Selangor Darul Ehsan. The ovals in blue represent motorcycles. PARKED motorcycles.
The white lines represent the usual white lines you see on our roads.
The motorcycle can accomodate 1 car no larger than your Perodua Myvi.
Here motorcycles are parked because it is raining heavily. Why coz some poor bastard doesnt want to get wet. Well tough luck dick head you choose to ride a bike, you will face the inevitable downpour.

YOUR MOTORCYCLES ARE NARROWING AN ALREADY NARROW LANE. HAVE THE FUCKING BRAINS TO PARK THE BIKE FAR AWAY FROM THIS TINY ASSHOLE TUNNEL.
OR DO I HAVE TO RUN OVER YOUR CUNTS FOR YOU TO REALISE THIS?

I have super glue all over my fingers!

It'll take days just to get it all off.
Grrrr.
Anyway

My car bonnet will be repainted soon!
Yayyyyyy
14 days from now to be exact.

You know that ruling the Malaysian RTD has come up with how backseat passengers have to buckle up? My question is, why now?
I mean its 2009,
surely in 1999 they would have thought of this. Still my mom says it will take awhile for people to get used to this ruling. The front seat belts were not fully utilised for at least 10 years after the ruling was established.

I'm riding my bike everyday to and from work. Since I'm perched higher up than cars, I can clearly see what goes on in those 4 wheel vehicles. Of the cars that are carrying passengers at the back, 8/10 dont buckle up back there. And more astonishing, I see kids aged 6-10 running around (or in this case climbing around in the back seat) while their parents just drive without care for whats going on.

Le sigh.

I have an 11 year old niece. And I'm proud to say she buckles up at the back without you asking her too. She's also one of the best behaved primary school kids around. *BEAMS*

On Malaysian motorcyclists

Motorcylists in this country must be either really skillfull or really foolish.
Yeap, in this BOLEH country motorcyclists know how to SMOKE WHILE RIDING

aaaand

SMS (short messaging phone service) WHILE RIDING. That means one hand on their phone and the other on the accelerator while keeping 1 eye on the phone and 1 eye on the road.


awesome.

Long rant

There is no cure for stupidity.

I read a comment in the Star Newspaper, the column where readers may send in an SMS and complain about this and that. One of them was
"Malaysian drivers are fools"

I cannot even stress how true that is. To make this easier, I shall put gripes in bullet point:

1. While driving, stuck in a traffic jam, I remain in the left lane (there're 3 lanes in total)
and some dude in a wira comes up behind me from the left of the left lane aka the Emergency Lane.
First of all, emergency lanes are NOT driving lanes.
He then gets impatient and tries to use it but cant. Because I block him from using it. I sit in a queue for 20 minutes and am not about to let some punk overtake selfishly. But he manages to get through.

Then he finds himself at a bottle neck, because his emergency lane ends, therefore he then has to cut into the left lane, causing me to stop otherwise I'll hit him. Fucking retard.

2. Malaysians do not realise that the right lane is for overtaking only. Yet some still hog the right lane at speeds of 80 - 110 kmph. This is cruising speed. If you cruise, use the middle lane. If you go slightly above 110 kmph, USE THE MIDDLE LANE! Rightlane is for OVERTAKING.

3. The largest population of retards are Motorcyclists. Like the main road, the motorcycle lane follows the same code. DO NOT OVERTAKE FROM THE LEFT.

and DO NOT TAILGATE. This poses a threat not only to the idiot, but the person in front of the idiot.

4. You cannot say much about the slow granpas because most of them keep to the left BUT they drive at 40-50 kmph. The motorcycle lane speed limit is 70 kmph. They are being safe for only themselves, it poses a danger to those behind them because we cannot overtake as bikes are coming from behind at 80-90 kmph. HOW LA????? You're stuck behind them.

5. Motorcyclists have no idea where is a safe spot to stop. ooooh he needs to answer an SMS, therefore stops safely at the side of the road. Are you nuts?? Theres barely enough room for 1 bike, you have to now stop at the side. Please stop 20 meteres away from the bike lane you moron.

6. Most Malayians dont know the meaning of the white line at the end of your street. So they will never know the meaning of GIVE WAY. You cannot simply barge into a lane and then treat the lane like your grandads sister's son owns it.

7. Back onto the road, a person tries to overtake a slow vehicle, speeds up naturally, but idiotically approaches the vehicle.

Imagine before overtake, car infront is 20 meters infront of you. Then you speed up and approach the car, now 10 meters. The you try to overtake, but too late, a car on the right is too near, so you cant overtake, meanwhile, car infront of you is now 5 meters.

You = 110 kmph
Car infront 80 kmph.
Distance 5 meters,
It doesnt take a fucking genious to know that you now have to JAM ON THE BRAKES.
Using up unnecessary fuel and brakes.

This is the proper overtaking manouver.
- Back off the throttle (thats accelerator)
-keep about 4 cars behind the car you wanna overtake
-drop gears (if manual) 1second
-look to the right to see got any car or not, and signal same time, ready to step on the gas 1second
- if clear, now step on the gas and make the overtake. 4 seconds
- After overtaking, be sure to signal, and move back into the middle 6 seconds AFTER you've passed the vehicle.

Total time to overtake is 12 seconds.

You dont overtake lasting 1 minute.

"THERE IS NO CURE FOR STUPIDITY! " - Tan Hwee Boon

wednesday blues

Traffic on the federal highway today was gorgeous from 8.15 to 8.30am. From the subang toll leading to the turn off at sunway, cars could not move, why?
Coz of a car stuck on the right side of the highway.
*evil laugh here*
(oh wadahek) BUAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

Making matters worse, petrol prices have gone down a whopping 90 cents the past 6 months.
From 2.70/L to 1.8/L.

Now the number of cars on the road have increased 5 fold I bet.
again...
BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Yeap, petrol goes down, nothing done about public transport, HIGHWAYS get clogged up (no not main roads, not lanes leading to a parking building, but a HIGHWAY)

So number of cars increased by 500% however, i bet that only 30% of those cars carry more than 1 person on the road. Hey i'm guilty of travelling solo as well but at least my vehicle only has 2 wheels and 1 seat.

Here are some thoughts

1) What if there could be an incentive for car pooling?
A car may go through a toll booth for free IF there is more than 1 passenger. Yes yes babies included.
So bring your babies to work people!

2) Special parking slots available for those who car pool.
Those who arrive to work with more than 1 person in the vehicle gets the privillege of a ready parking spot. (wait a minute, i think Digi already has this)


NOW WAKE UP! (splash cold water)

It wont happen because this is MALAYSIA lahhhh!!
Boleeeeeeehhhhhhhhh!!!!...NOT