I have already mentioned before that seeing more than two people on the 100 to 125cc motorcycles is not uncommon at all. You can also commonly see two people on a bike and between them one of the big fat gas bottles or other interesting combinations.

Another interesting thing is that I have to say they are pretty good drivers, considering that they don’t indicate much and there is so many of them on the roads. It seems like they drive these bikes from their childhoods as I saw a few drivers not being older than 12 – at least that’s what they seemed to me even taking into consideration that they look generally younger then us, white people. They mostly drive on the side of the road behind the thick white line that marks the side. If there is no line they still ride next to the cars on the left (remember that they drive on the left here) and the car drivers are completely aware of this and make space for them. I can’t imagine this happening in Australia, where the drivers are generally inconsiderate of bicycle riders and scared of any close encounters.

I think I should explain my last statement little bit more. It will make up for another example of the behavior of Malay people in traffic. So, say you are overtaking on an Australian road. If you get back into the line less than about 300m before you pass the car going in the opposite direction, what you usually get is at least flashing lights and sometimes even worse. And this will happen to you even if there is basically space for four cars next to each other on the road so they could just move their steering wheel couple of degrees to the left to make you some space even if you were going to pass them while still overtaking. But no, they will rather keep driving towards you and make the effort of flashing their headlights, using their horn and sometimes even making gestures, rather then only moving the steering wheel a bit and giving you a smile – because that is what happens in my country of origin – The Czech Republic -  and that is what happens even more here. Here they start overtaking even if they know they can’t make it in time. The important thing is to know that there is enough space on the road to accommodate all of them during such maneuver. Getting back into the line even less then 50 m before passing the oncoming traffic is normal. Why do the Australian drivers have to get mad every time you don’t make it more then 300m before passing them? I mean I know Australians mostly can’t drive (of course they can, but how…), but who scared them so much of other cars at the same time? What makes the difference is I believe the awareness of what’s happening on the road. Unfortunately many Australians (including the government it seems) think that driving safely means driving slowly. Sometimes these slow drivers are much more dangerous than the faster ones that are aware…

Anyway, back to Malaysia. Even the cars mostly don’t indicate, especially when it is clear from the flow of traffic which way they are going to go. I noticed that the only drivers that always indicate are the bus drivers. Indicating or not, I feel quite safe driving here. They don’t do unexpected things like breaking suddenly and that is I think the key together with everybody being aware about everybody else on the road.

And the one accident I saw? Well, it should be said that the lorry driver didn’t have much space on the bridge with heavy oncoming traffic so the old man should have waited.

Oh, and as far as speed goes? I haven’t seen many speed limit signs but most cars drive quite slowly anyway. I mean on the highway I am usually overtaking most of them while going only around 100 or 110km/h. There are some cars that overtake me in high speed from time to time too however. That is another thing. People really make driving faster then others on highways and other 4 lane roads easy. They don’t drive side by side and they stay in the left lane or get there quickly to make the way clear for the fast approaching cars behind them. Although much better now in Australia, people still take ages to get back into the left lane and some still don’t care at all.

Oh yes, and get this: You quite often meet people going in the opposite direction in the side line - on the same side of the road that you are driving on! This also doesn’t get anybody of their mental balance. The bikes that usually drive in the side lane as well just get into the proper lane to give the person going in the opposite direction the necessary space to pass. This is a bit crazy and over the top I think but still nobody gets mad, which is great.

And smoking and using a mobile phone while riding a bike? - Things like this are absolutely normal!