THERE have been a lot of fatal accidents along the North-South Expressway and other primary roads across the country.

Recent examples include two cases of vehicles ploughing into the back of lorries that stopped in the emergency lane.

In the first case, three people from the same family died. In the second, an express bus hit the back of a lorry, seriously injuring 16 people.

A father and son also died in the emergency lane near Malacca while attempting to change a flat tyre. They were grazed by a lorry from behind.

These are but several unfortunate incidents happening every day and show how deaths are taking their toll on road users. Within the past week, more than a dozen people have died on the highways alone.

Can we avoid accidents and save lives? Had the authorities acted sooner, perhaps most accidents could have been mitigated.

Long standing problems

The Ministry of Transport through the Road Transport Department is the authority that examines and approves vehicle dimension, weight and design.

Without its green light, no vehicle can be on the road.

Yes, that includes all those odd-looking lorries carrying long items jutting out of their rear, with a small warning sign ‘Awas Muatan Panjang’.

Strangely enough, these lorries are found only in Malaysia, nowhere else.

On the other hand, all the expressways and roads owe their design, junction layout, flyovers, gradients and slopes, and emergency lane’s dimension and measurements to the Ministry of Works.

Approval to construct and to commission them are in the hands of the Ministry of Works, which uses two agencies: the Malaysian Highway Authority for highways and the Public Works Department for other roads.

Yet, judging from the dimension of vehicles approved compared to road measurements and design, they are somehow mismatched.

It appears that the two ministries do not consult each other often enough.

Otherwise, how would you explain the fact that large vehicles can have a road-permissible width of about 2.85m, plus wing mirrors giving a total width of almost 3.1m?

Yet, the width of lanes is between 3m and 3.25m.

Imagine two large lorries next to each other. Their combined dimensions exceed the road width by 0.2m.

Clearly, the road cannot accommodate them.

In a two-lane expressway scenario, the free gap between each lorry is only 0.15m.

This small gap poses a grave danger to both vehicles when overtaking at speeds of 80 or 90km/h.

These RTD approved vehicles are usually 15m long and they both have low drag co-efficient, thereby creating high drift risks for other vehicles in the adjacent lane.

The conditions are worse on rainy days.

Emergency lane

A bigger safety threat is posed by a low specification requirement set by the Ministry of Works for the emergency lane.

It is only required to be 2.25m wide and there is no provision for lay-bys at every km of an expressway, as suggested by international road federation guidelines. 

So, the obvious question is, how could a 3.1m wide lorry stop safely?

For sure, it will interfere with the free flow of traffic. This is indeed staggering and little wonder why so many accidents take place.

High vehicle to road capacity ratios

All these accidents are pointing to one common denominator: our roads and expressways are not safe, in terms of design standards and operation.

It wasn’t so serious and glaringly obvious when the expressways were new and traffic volume was low.

However, today, the traffic volume has increased many times over, which makes it harder to maintain safe operation when the original estimated vehicle to road capacity (VC ratio) has exceeded its original maximum.

Whoever comes in as the new minister must be aware of this situation. He has to understand the technical aspect, something this ministry has not done in the past.

He must not be misled by certain interest groups, or that building more roads or expressways could provide the answer to this problem.

It will not, and in fact more accidents will occur if the original road specs and measurements are not improved.

Building more expressways will be meaningless and will not solve this long-standing problem.

The new minister must recognise this shortfall in our transport infrastructure, as road accidents issues are also closely linked to the road design, current measurements and the absence of up-to-date safety features. – December 5, 2022.

* Rosli Khan 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.