Serious reforms were announced in the field of driving, and particularly driver education. Driving lessons are likely to cost more, the syllabus for the drivers' test will be more complex. Put simply, it's going to be just a little bit more difficult to get a driving license.
At the risk of sounding like a dog in the manger (I got my license years ago, and my lessons only cost a certain amount of frayed temper on the part of the brother who had undertaken to teach me) I feel like saying, 'About time, too!'
Driving lessons are worth a certain amount of money in RM, our national currency. If they're good, they're worth it. If they're bad, they'll be paid for in a currency of nerves, high blood pressure and vehicle damage – and human lives.
6000 – 1500 human lives are lost on Malaysian roads each year. This is the figure quoted by our Prime Minister when he announced plans to introduce a new curriculum for learner drivers (which will obviously have to apply to instructors too). He bluntly pointed out that a large segment of road accidents were the result of 'human error', though the terms he used were 'speeding, and disregard for the law.'
Who teaches the teachers?
If a 10-year-old boy can't write his own name we are inclined to blame his teacher.
If a new driver whizzes around the road like a maniac, aren't we justified in wondering what he was taught?
Who actually teaches driving teachers? What are the qualifications necessary to set up as a driving instructor?
I suppose an intending instructor has to have a drivers' license, and a car. Then he's got to invest in a blue-and-red L-plate. He probably teaches his students the Road Code too, but only as a purely theoretical exercise. You need to know all this to pass the test – but out there on the road it'll only cramp your style!
Keep an eye on L-plate cars around town and see what they do:
• Crawl on the central white line between two lanes. OK, we all crawled when we first learnt to drive, but we were taught to keep well to the left when doing so.
• Turn left or right and change lanes without blinking. I don't mean 'I saw an L-plate car doing this once', I mean a lot of them do it all the time. So, to be fair, do lots of Kuching drivers, but ... do they learn this while still under instruction?
• Enter a roundabout in what seems to be the shortest queue, and then change lanes while they're inside it. THIS is why many Kuching drivers think roundabouts are a hindrance to smooth traffic flow, because people mis-use them. And by the look of things, our young learners are taught to do just that.
• Speed up at the sight of an orange traffic light and rush through the red. In fact, it's what half of our drivers do, but the L-boys and girls, with an instructor sitting beside the eager learner, do it too. As they were taught, so they will drive.
• Stop inside a yellow grid. If another driver is sissy enough to stop before the grid, he's likely to be aggressively hooted from behind. Yes, I have been hooted by an L-car for committing this 'offense'. Of course I don't know who did the honking, the student or his wise teacher.
• Overtake a queue and then push into it near the head. To be fair, not many fledgling L-drivers try this particular kind of bullying, but the P-plate undergraduates enjoy it, along with a good portion of supposedly experienced and competent drivers out there.
Solve all traffic woes?
To really solve what the press is pleased to call 'traffic woes', we'd need to cut down drastically on the number of vehicles on the road. This isn't going to happen. I certainly won't give up my car, and you won't, and neither will he... or she... or anybody.
The other option is that all drivers move at a speed suited to traffic around them, refrain from idiotic overtaking, and 'regard the law', as per the Prime Minister's recommendation. It won't remove traffic congestion, but it will keep the glutinous mass of cars moving even if at slow speed.
