Traffic Woes

The traffic in Bintulu, once a quiet fishing village that has grown into a bustling industrial town, is beginning to show the traits of traffic that, if their flow is not properly planned and managed, will cause daily congestions and unnecessary hold ups that will also cause unnecessary stresses for drivers. To make matters worse, drivers here are still taking the easy way out every opportunity they get, disregarding standard traffic rules and regulations. Most behave as though Bintulu is in the 80’s and 90’s where people just park their cars anywhere they please, make U-turns anywhere possible even if going against traffic. It was ok those days as there was then not much traffic on the road and the roads too were few. In the 80’s there were only two traffic lights, several more were put up in the 90’s and there are now traffic lights everywhere. And yet, drivers sometimes disregard them. On one occasion I was driving slowly behind a row of vehicles on the slow lane of the road when a car, several vehicles ahead of me, simply stop on the flowing lane to allow several passengers to disembark, one passenger even got out of the car on the fast lane side, throwing cautions to the wind!! I was stopped behind the row of cars and I just looked on in disbelief at the unconcerned attitudes of the people ahead of me.
Disciplining drivers will be a tough job for the authorities. One sure way of making them toe the line is to enforce the traffic summons. However, before doing this the road system and design, the parking system, the road surfaces and conditions must be made conducive and friendly to the public. I noticed that newly developed areas and commercial centers are built with a lot of car parking provisions. This is a good start. The parking systems they use are people friendly. You have to pay when parking your car and paying is made easy by using coupons. If you get parking compounds, paying for them is also made easy for the public.
One sad situation, adding to woes of drivers and car owners, are the conditions of roads. There are far too many potholes patchwork that the road surfaces become uneven and are quite dangerous to fast traffic. Making matters worse are the many over laden and overburdened trucks and lorries plying the main roads such that the roads become even more uneven. These lorries blatantly overload and they seem to get away with it all the time. When driving on these roads one can feel the steering wheel going its own direction when going over these uneven surfaces. A slight misjudgment by the driver can lead ones’ car to the side of the road, and the sides of the roads are usually soft earth. There are very few places where the road shoulders are hard and even very few with sufficient sides and shoulders. So, in times of emergencies one has no side table to stop the vehicle on and has no choice but to take a portion of the road to stop the vehicle, causing other traffic to dangerously swerve usually to the middle of the road and then causing disruption to the flow of traffic in the middle of the road. Accidents and mishaps can and do happen at times. This is perhaps the reason why the driver I mentioned earlier stopped on the road to discharge his passengers.
Bintulu is fast becoming a modern town, with modern buildings, shopping malls, hotels and commercial centers that are spread into several pocket areas. It is properly planned but the roads are something else. There is a dire need to upgrade the roads to a higher class road that can withstand excessive pressures of increasing traffic and heavy ones too. Most of all, there is an immediate need for proper enforcement of traffic rules. Stop double parking and haphazard parking especially at the end of school hours and on peak periods. There is at least one school located in all the major roads in Bintulu and end of school hours are just times of traffic chaos at these locations. Something needs to be done to alleviate this daily chaotic situation. If the authorities are thinking of bringing Bintulu and upgrading it to a first world city then all its infrastructure works should be designed to first world standard and more importantly maintenance and administration should also be of first world standards. It will be tough to achieve and much tougher to maintain….. We shall see what happens in the future……

MKI Ramblings Unlimited,
Bintulu, Sarawak