Thrills, spills and death plague Malaysian roads

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Kuala Lumpur, Sept 25: Malaysia’s neurosurgeons, bartenders and nightclub bouncers all have something in common, they are all busiest on weekends.

Every weekend, neurosurgeons here operate on hundreds of motorcyclists, car drivers and passengers brought into hospital emergency rooms with head injuries suffered on some of the world’s most dangerous roads. Many of them do not survive and join a toll of about 17 people killed on average, every day, on Malaysia’s roads.

“Cancer and HIV-AIDS might hog the headlines, but road accidents are the biggest killer in Malaysia,” Kuala Lumpur neurosurgeon Vickneswaran Mathaneswaran said. That figure translates to an average of 4.2 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles and ranks Malaysia as the 30th most-dangerous country in terms of fatal road accidents, according to UN data.

Malaysia has built a web of high-speed motorways over the past 20 years as it races toward its goal of developed-country status by 2020, but road safety is still stuck in the slow lane. Over-crowded cars hurtle along roads at more than 100 kph. The occupants are rarely buckled. Toddlers often crawl around unrestrained in the front passenger seat. Motorcyclists take the most risks, weaving through city traffic at high speed, their helmets unfastened if worn at all.

In 2005, 6,188 people died in road accidents in Malaysia, 60% of them being motorcyclists. In the first half of 2006 alone, 3,137 people were killed with 1,818 being either motorcyclists or pillion riders.

Most accidents are unrelated to alcohol abuse. Young male motorcyclists are often high on nothing more than adrenaline.

“It is exhilarating to race down a road. All I need is just a few ringgit for fuel and I can have the time of my life,” dispatch rider Amir Fairuz said as he prepared for an illegal street race on a Friday night.

He is among the hundreds of motorcyclists who gather every weekend in Kuala Lumpur to race each other or just roam in packs along expressways and city streets, performing dangerous tricks at high speed, some of them without helmets.