CARS
The trip up north (and back) is well-known for being arduous, whether you are driving or not. In fact, my recent five hours trip back to Singapore from Genting on the North South Expressway was so mind-numbing, I started hallucinating about friendly officers welcoming us to their heavenly land known as ‘The Customs’. I slapped myself awake before the imaginary officers could serve us passports as snacks. I decided then to occupy myself with a game I made up. The rules went like this:
- Add ten points for each Singapore car that overtakes you. (This happens all the time.)
- Add 20 points for each Singapore weekend car that overtakes you. (This happens quite frequently.)
- Add 30 points each time a Proton Kancil overtakes you (This happens more often than you think.)
- Minus five points each time a tour bus overtakes you. (Rather common…and insulting!)
- Minus 10 points when anyone whines about how there are still 132 km to go.
- Minus 30 points for honking/flashing your headlights/displaying other obscene body language at fellow Singaporean drivers. No matter how thoughtlessly they drove or hogged a lane, we should grin and bear it. Whatever happened to the love for our own countrymen?
Okay, so the game is more for passengers, not drivers. But here’s a somewhat true-to-life account - just for drivers – intertwining useful tips/ interesting facts on driving etiquette on the North- South Expressway.
Up North
You start the trip full of energy and in good spirits. You are well-prepared to stay hydrated and sane. Water bottle? Check. Map? Check. Ringgit for tolls? Check.
You hum merrily as you steer your car onto the North South Expressway. A couple more km and you’ll see your first toll booth. You contemplate making a quick getaway and hope no one notices. You shake the thought off. If you are a typical Singaporean who places convenience on a high priority, a SMART TAG is a worthy investment when it comes to paying tolls because all you need to do is touch and go. But not you. You prefer the good old method of using cash. As you join the snaking queue, you signal to keep left. That’s where the cash payment booths are.
After several more toll booths and being a few dozen ringgits poorer, you continue to make your way to KL. You stop at the Machap rest point, a fairly crowded stop that gives you a toilet, food and a peace of mind because you spot countless other Singapore cars there too.
Continuing on the journey, you’ve covered 100km when your partner alerts you to flashing headlights from the flow of cars on the opposite side of the highway - in broad daylight. That could only mean one thing: the highway police are patiently waiting for you further up your route. You need to decelerate – fast and quickly come up with a facial expression that says ‘innocence’ and hope for the best.
The highway police wave you through their roadblocks and you heave a sigh of relief. From there, you slam on your pedal as if you’ve got newfound freedom (and rightly so; highway police will not reappear so soon after a roadblock). You drive like a repressed Singaporean driver on a highway that stretches for miles (literally) – keeping left for all of two minutes and spending the rest of the journey on the overtaking lane.
Down South
You begin your trip back to Singapore after lunch with the lousiest mood. The journey will be long and tedious. The weather doesn’t look too good either. Storm clouds gather and before you know it, fat droplets of rain spatter onto your windscreen.
Visibility can be greatly reduced during a rainstorm, and even more so when you drive through certain stretches of roads with strong crosswinds. You squint to see what lies ahead but find it hard to be able to see anything further than three metres.
You start to think you are seeing things when you notice hazard lights on a car travelling at 90km/h ahead of you. Then you realise this is a way drivers help each other during rainstorms by switching on their hazard lights while on the move - just so you can see the road ahead better to avoid an all-out accident.
As night falls, so do your eyelids. You are inching towards Johor State, where the highway narrows from three lanes to two. You groan. Two-lane highways are infamously stressful for drivers because there are only two choices – the left lane which can be very slow (or stagnant) when you come behind heavy lorries or toll trucks; and the right overtaking lane which requires you to be on vigilance for cars fast approaching you from behind.
For a few minutes, you have been tailing a painfully slow truck without being able to surpass it. Your partner screams: “Come on! Overtake this buffalo!” You look at your right side-mirror and signal right, moving into the overtaking lane. Without warning, a car looms large behind and flashes its gigantic headlights at you. Almost immediately, the car’s right indicator lights start blinking.
You recognise it as a signal that the car behind wants to speed ahead and you have to give way. Okay, chill. No big deal. You just need to move your car to the left. “The car behind is so close! Just keep left already!” Your partner screams yet again. You fight the urge to stuff a soft toy in his/her mouth.
This ‘routine’ keeps on for a whole 200 km before you see "Tuas" on the signboard.
As you approach Tuas Checkpoint, your partner announces: “350 points! Not bad. Better than the last trip. But wow, that was some Proton Kancil that zipped past us…”
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Feeling the itch to drive to Malaysia after reading? If you can’t make the trip this Friday, there’s one more long weekend coming right up in less than a month. Labour Day trip anyone?
For more information/pointers on how to drive safely in Malaysia, here are a few more articles:Drive Safe in Malaysia, Driving safely on the North-South Expressway and Take a drive holiday in Malaysia.
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