Autoworld Blog

Malaysians are known as a creative lot when it comes to ‘modifying’ cars. On my recent travel to Kuching, I spotted a Perodua MyVi that somewhat looked a lot more premium than it’s siblings from the same Perodua stable.

Sporting a front bumper that is modelled after the E60 BMW 5 series, this particular vehicle sure looked different. Luckily the owner has the sense of not including the blue and white propeller logo of BMW alongside the double kidney treatment.

So what do you think?

This picture appeared on the North American GTR Owners Club (NAGTROC) forum and if you look at the BERHENTI sign at the back, you will see that the person who crashed this car is a Malaysian.

Well, this probably the third GTR crash recorded on the web. Usually the Japanese and Hongkies will crash some fantastic supercar or other first before the rest of the world and this time the Hongkies came first, the Japanese followed closely while we came third ….

We have made it to the big leagues of irresponsible drivers.

Let’s face it; parking space is always a concern whenever one goes to the popular malls in the Klang Valley during the weekend. No matter how many thousand of bays are provided, it’s not unheard of for shoppers to spend an hour looking for a bay or even worst, got turned off and left the mall outright.

A week or two ago, I spotted this Proton Saga trying to squeeze into a bay that’s too small for its size. Meant only for small compact vehicles like those offerings from Perodua, this full sized sedan tried and utilized every single millimetre to fit itself in.

Take a look at how ‘skilfully’ the vehicle is parked.

We humans rely a lot sight to keep ourselves safe. Vision is probably the most important of the five senses when it comes to safe interaction with the world at large because it is the most direct method of achieving spatial orientation.

When night falls we have to resort to a different set of sensors in our eyes, instead of using the colour-sensitive receptors we rely more on the ones that help us judge contrast, i.e we go on black and white mode.

The black and white mode has several restrictions, firstly it impairs our judgment of depth of field and by virtue of this we are also less sensitive to objects in our path. At night everything moves more slowly.

This applies to driving as well.

Where I live, there is a small but bustling commercial cluster among residential homes and as such we get a lot of non-locals passing through and these people seem to lack the sensitivity to the safety concerns of the people who live there.

They drive fast at all times. City Hall has put up a series of speed breakers on many of the roads there but there are still drivers who are intent on breaking some land speed record on these roads.

These same drivers seem to have extra sensitive night vision because the dark does not seem to slow them down. It is quite disturbing.

Look at the picture above and you will see that even with the best lighting technology on the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and ample street lighting, the driver’s vision is restricted to less than 100 metres. Sure we can still see beyond that distance but we simply cannot really pick out details joggers, children crossing roads and such.

On residential roads it is best to keep speeds of less than 40 kilometres per hour, anything beyond that is simply inviting danger. In fact going faster than 40km/h in residential areas are probably more dangerous in the daytime because there are more children about.

Just remember that if you hit someone, no amount of apologising is going to be enough and you will have to live with the guilt of ruining someone’s life and the life of those they love.

When the sun sets, slow down and take it easy. You are not going to impress anyone by going fast, you are just going to look like a jerk.

What I say here may be obvious to many of you but there are a few who simply fail to locate their common sense when driving in residential areas

The Chinese New Year traffic last weekend was hectic and busy as usual during festivities of this level. It would be expected that the traffic police will be out in full force to ensure motorists are adhering to the legal speed limit of 110km/h on the highways.

Aside from watch towers (unmanned and unused!) that have been erected along the North-South Expressway quite a while ago, it seems that the authorities have come out with a fresh idea to present to the motoring public.

Placed under bridges along the North-South Expressway are posters of a traffic policeman armed with a speed camera. At night, a flashing blue light will accompany the said poster. How it helps as a visual deterrent is highly questionable but I must admit it did provide me with some amusement during my travelling.

Makes me wonder what the authorities will think of next…..

Bumper-to-bumper crawl on the North-South Expressway

I am starting a new series called from the car, where I will post pictures taken while in the car. Our country is beautiful and even if you are too lazy to get out of the car, you can get some good pictures. These are taken on a drive to Cameron Highlands. It includes scenes along the North-South Expressway and the new Simpang Pulai- Gua Musang highway.

Pt1 - North-South Expressway

Pt2 Simpang Pulai-Gua Musang Highway

Pt3 Cameron Highlands

Pt4 Boh Plantation Sungai Palas