Wednesday, March 05, 2008

How to not kill yourself(and others) while driving

Welcome to the first installment of the possibly infinite number of installments of "How to not kill yourself(and others) while driving"-series. This series was inspired by the numerous times I nearly got my car shoved off the road by blithering idiots or cupcakes who change lanes or merge lanes without taking the necessary steps required to ensure the preservation of lives, be it the driver's or anyone else's, on the road.

For those of you who stay in Kluang, I'm pretty sure you're familiar with how difficult it is to change lanes on Jalan Batu Pahat, especially during peak hours, to get from the Mengkibol/Taman Intan side to my school, which is Sekolah Tinggi Kluang/Taman Lian Seng area or vice versa. Even if you're not familiar with that area, I'm sure those of you who stay in Kluang would've been through that place at least once in your life.

Usually, what would happen is that crazy drivers would change lanes without looking at their side view mirrors to see if there are any cars coming their way.

So, I can't think of any better examples than to use Jalan Batu Pahat as our first installment of "How to not kill yourself(and others) while driving)-series!


From the picture above, you can see that I've labeled all the roads accordingly and circled 3 areas where accidents are most likely to happen as well as outlined 2 routes which new drivers will usually face problems while navigating through them. This 'guide' is not for the experienced drivers because if you're experienced, you would already possess the common sense required to get through this area without trying to kill someone else.

Althought I made the mistake of not labelling the 4 lanes, we shall now label them as Lane A, Lane B, Lane C and Lane D from the left most lane to the one on the far right.

As you can see(if not, click on the picture to look at the bigger picture), the 2 routes that I have highlighted in red and green are for getting from STK/Taman Lian Seng to Mengkibol/Taman Intan and vice versa.

Let's look at the red route first, for example. 2 common areas where drivers are most likely to get biff-ed are labeled 1 and 2. In area no. 1, drivers always stop dead at the line while waiting for all the cars in Lane B to pass before coming off the bend and follow through Lane A. That is NOT a good idea, especially during rush hour because all the cars coming from Jalan Sekolah will be stuck from bumper to bumper waiting for one numb-nut to get off the line and merge from Lane A to Lane B. You should never stop dead on Lane A just to wait for the opportunity to cut into Lane B because if you do that, chances of you getting rammed from the cars behind you is pretty high because since you're already on Lane A, all the other drivers are going to assume that you will be going straight rather than to stop dead in your tracks in Lane A.

What you should do is to follow through the bend and go unto Lane A. You don't have to drive fast on Lane A as long as you keep moving. While you're on Lane A, keep an eye on the cars moving along Lane B and when the opportunity comes, then only should you cut into Lane B.

In area no. 2, new drivers rarely look in front of them as they change their lanes from Lane C to Lane D to get to the Mengkibol/Taman Intan area. The drivers will then either a) crash into the car in front of them or b) drive right onto the road divider. I know it sounds ridiculous but trust me, I've seen that before.

If you look at the green route, which is to get from the Mengkibol/Taman Intan area to STK/Taman Lian Seng area, the only problematic area as I see is area no. 3. Certain drivers always think that Lane D belongs to them as they change lanes from Lane D to Lane C. What they will do is that they will stop DEAD on Lane D and then cause the rest of the cars behind them to stop as well and everyone will be stuck from bumper to bumper. So, it's always people like these that will cause jams/accidents.

What can we learn from this?

STOP DRIVING LIKE IDIOTS!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha...shows that you are very free :-)

KingChai said...

Yes... yes.... very free :)

What happened to your blog?