Express buses going way too fast

Few weeks back while renewing my wife’s car road tax I was told that I could only renew it for six months as I have summons not settled and thus being blocked by the traffic police. So reluctantly I went to the Traffic Police HQ in Seremban 2 and not surprisingly there were all together 12 summons not settled since a few years ago not on my wife’s car which is registered under my name but my own car. It was the latest 3 summons that causing the traffic police to block the renewal of the road tax so like it or not, I paid RM 300 each and got clearance from the traffic police then I went back to JPJ to get my wife’s car renewed the road tax for a year.

That’s the price you pay for speeding, but as a frequent traveler due to work requirement, I guess I can’t really avoid getting summons unless I can abide to the laws all the way. But when you are on a long straight road, highway especially, it’s just boring to be slow. But going fast doesn’t mean that it is reckless driving as it depends on the situation. If there are too many cars on the road, it will be dangerous to be fast as you would not know what other cars may do suddenly but if there is a light traffic, I guess it is ok to be fast a little bit.

I have seen too many times that lorries driving very slowly on the third lane and these people should be summoned for obstructing traffic as there were long queue of vehicles following at the back. I have seen too frequently that express buses driving way faster than they should be. You can ask the frequent express bus passengers and 9 out of 10 will tell you their bad experiences of how express buses going way too fast than the permissible speed. The recent case of express bus causing havoc on the North-South Express Way is just another example. If the express bus was following a legal speed, how on earth could it be skipped to the opposite lane in the way knocking down 2 cars, a van and a bus, causing 12 death and so many injured?

For the commercial vehicle, the legal speed is 80/90 km/h, as you can see on the big sticker at the back of the vehicle. That means it should go only to a maximum of 80 km/h on the trunk road and 90 km/h on the high way and you guess how many express bus drivers will follow that? I can tell you practically none. The 80/90 km/h sticker is for display only, nobody actually following that speed limit.

When I sit on an airplane, I know that I have no control of my life; it is the pilot, the plane itself and the Almighty. Now it seems that the bus passengers are also facing the same fate, it is the driver, the bus and the Almighty that will decide their fates like it or not.

Instead of issuing so many summons ekor which is useless to deter people especially the bus driver to abide to the legal speed why not the traffic police put more effort to educate them such as from time to time having road safety campaigns, frequently visiting the errant bus company making sure that their drivers are well trained and educated.

Bus drivers or for that matter all drivers/riders should realize that their bad driving behavior can potentially kill many innocent lives and the recent bus accident is just another misfortune that can be prevented if the bus driver who was also killed in the accident, could abide to the speed limit.