LATELY, my wife has been complaining about my driving. She has a point because my reflexes have slightly decreased due to age but I have another reason for it. During the last six months or so, I experienced a few heart-stopping moments avoiding potholes on our roads with full view of oncoming vehicles.

At a traffic light junction about 100m from where I live, it seems like it is a “potholes heaven”. Since the beginning of the year, the authorities fixed it no less than half a dozen times and it keeps coming back after a few weeks especially during rainy days. There were also accident “near-misses”.

More than two years ago, there was a pledge by the Public Works Department (JKR) to ensure that there will be no potholes on public roads under its jurisdiction but two years on, it remained a pledge. Earlier, the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) declared its target in making the city pothole-free by 2017. Again, nearly three years on, the situation in KL is found wanting despite us aiming for developed nation status.

Depending on the size of the potholes, it can put a huge strain on vehicle’s suspension and can cause extensive damage.

There is a group of unsung heroes called “The Ikatan Silaturahim Brotherhood” led by Azlan Sani Nawawi, or “Lando”. He has been on a crusade of repairing roads in Malaysia to make them safe and better for road users since 2007. Before Lando, it was an odd-job worker nicknamed Panjang, who became a folk hero in Johor Baru for his determination to cover every pothole he saw.

In 2011, a couple filed a suit against the Johor Baru City Council and the city’s mayor over the death of their son who was killed when he was flung from a motorcycle after it hit a pothole two years earlier. A pothole accident in 2014 left Muhamad Aizat Onn disfigured for life. There were also many news reports showing Malaysians suffering permanent injuries due to pothole accidents.

A study on road traffic deaths done in September 2017 showed such loss of lives cost the nation roughly US$2.75 billion in 2011 (based on a loss of US$0.4 million per death). This is about 1% of Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Earlier this year, I wrote an article, “Concrete way to better roads” (The Star, January 12, 2018).

In the article, I discussed the advantages of concrete roads and the billions spent for maintenance of our present road system. A proposal was put forward for PWD/JKR to do a new life-cycle cost analysis calculation between concrete and asphalt roads without losing sight of economic, social, sustainability and environmental impacts to determine the best paving solutions.

Additionally, since asphalt requires more maintenance, there will be a need for more repair crews, more congestion and disruption to work areas including danger to road crews and users alike. These result in inefficiencies.

In the National Transformation Programme (NTP) Annual Report 2016, it was reported that road maintenance is extraordinarily expensive. A single “pothole patcher” alone costs several hundred thousand ringgit. It has been estimated that RM200 million is required to resurface 1,800km of road lanes.

The main argument is high initial cost for concrete roads. With technological advancements, the cement experts would surely have solutions to reduce initial costs.

I would really like to hear from JKR or even DBKL on the advantages of concrete roads against asphalt after taking into consideration issues discussed above. Surprisingly, the International Society for Concrete Pavements (ISCP) based in USA deemed it fit to pick up my January 2018 article. ISCP’s mission is to facilitate the advancement of knowledge and technology related to concrete pavements through education, technology transfer and research at an international level.

I can only assume that JKR or DBKL either have more urgent matters to attend to or this is not an important and urgent issue to them. There was admission that funding is among the reasons for delays in road repairs.

On the other side of the coin, some contractors said if the roadworks were done properly, they would have to wait for a long time to do the job again!

This is not a call to turn all roads to concrete because there are other factors to consider such as traffic levels and environmental issues. In Austria and Holland, it is a policy that concrete pavement is used above a certain traffic level.

Our unsung hero, Lando said, “it is better to stop the problem from happening rather than trying to fix it afterwards”.

Where are you and what say you JKR and DBKL? – October 30, 2018.

* Saleh Mohammed reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.