In my last post, I described the funeral wakes for two young boys who had died in a motorcycle accident only the previous night. I would like to continue the story here, and to add some of my own insights.
Nobody knows how the boys died, except that they had gone out on their motorbikes the previous evening, and were found dead at the side of the road at six this morning. At the post-mortem, it was found that one of them had a broken skull and there was dirty water in his lungs, suggesting drowning in the roadside ditch. Although I'm no detective, I would surmise that they were riding their bikes together and may have been hit by passing traffic, ending up in the ditch. But we will probably never know.
One hears of deaths like this all over Malaysia. Youngsters, usually, on motorbikes, hit by a car or truck, falling onto the road at speed or colliding with another vehicle, ending up dead or badly injured. I once saw some photographs as a safety exhibition run by the police. One photo showed a policeman holding what looked like bloody human brains in a crash helmet, at the scene of a motorbike fatality.
The Malaysian Government has for many years now been organising increasingly hard-hitting and gory safety campaigns on the television and radio, showing us the importance of road safety and highlighting the human consequences of road accidents. Yet despite all this commendable official effort, these deaths and injuries keep happening time and time again, and they seem to be getting more frequent.
Is it because the riders don't wear helmets? No. Most of them do wear crash helmets. Is it because they ride too fast or too madly? Well, probably not, despite the well-publicised Mat Rempit illegal racer incidents in Peninsular Malaysia. Is it because the police don’t enforce the law? Well, it seems that the police are constantly stopping motorcyclists for various offenses, including riding without helmets. So there must be some other causes...
To me, as a fairly neutral observer, there are indeed other causes. After seven years in this country, I have been able to identify three factors that may cause the deaths of so many motorcyclists. These factors are the attitudes of road users, the state of the roads themselves, and the street lighting conditions at night.
Let us firstly deal with the attitude of other road users towards motorcyclists. Quite simply, motorcyclists don’t seem to get much respect from other motorists. You see, most people who ride motorcycles, especially in Sarawak, fall into two groups: young students, and the poor. Young students will include school kids, and university and college undergraduates. The poor, for this analysis, will include low-income groups such as farmers, factory workers, soldiers and junior-ranking office workers.
Now, young students ride motorbikes because it’s cool and convenient to ride them, plus that’s all they can afford. The poor just ride them because that’s all they can afford. And you will frequently find that many who have a motorbike will use it to carry the whole family – mum, dad, and often two or more little kids. Because it’s all they’ve got, and all they can afford.
Now, many people on the road, driving cars and trucks and vans, are not from these groups, or work for people who are not from these groups, and they seem to treat those who ride motorbikes like low-class scum. After all, they don’t pay much road tax lah, they are just poor people lah, who cares about them lah? They have so many bloody kids lah, whose gonna miss another one lah?
So it’s OK to turn left straight in front of a motorcycle without signalling, or to knock one over without stopping, or to drive too close to one, forcing the rider into the kerb, or to hit one from behind. So, the riders of motorbikes are not even on the respect radar, and as a result, they become victims of bloody-mindedness and sheer snobbery. They are so small lah!
Now the second reason why, in my analysis, motorcyclists die so frequently is the road surface itself. Now let me throw a scenario at you, dear readers. Imagine you are travelling at 60 kilometres per hour in a car and you hit a small hole in the road. What will you feel? At worst, a slight blip in your suspension.
But what if you are riding a motorbike at the same speed and you hit the same hole? If you are lucky, your bike will buck upwards and you may be able to land in the right direction, and carry on riding. At worst, even if you are not going very fast, you may come flying off your bike like a thrown steeplechaser. I wouldn’t fancy your chances, to be honest!
Now no matter how we may deny it, in some parts of Kuching, some roads have potholes, especially the smaller secondary roads. And not just potholes, but the whole road surface is in some places so uneven and bumpy that driving can be akin to sailing in a speedboat on choppy seas.
Indeed, certain roads in and around Kuching seem to have surfaces with the consistency of chewing gum. Perhaps because of the heat, the surface has warped, and one of the results is that the edges of the road are very uneven indeed. So usually, to avoid being struck from behind, motorcyclists have to ride at the edge of the road.... where the potholes are at their thickest!
Ironically, one example of this kind of road is the very road where the two dead boys lived.
Now I know the authorities have been repairing and improving the roads a lot in recent years, and I applaud them for that. They have done a great job in the seven years I have been here in this town. But it is still the case that potholes and uneven road surfaces exist.
Now, as a car driver, I experience potholes and uneven road surfaces merely as a bumpy ride, little more. A minor inconvenience that keeps me from falling asleep at the wheel. But imagine if you are a motorcyclist. It means that every few metres, you have to make split-second decisions at speed (with a visor partially blocking your vision) as to which part of the road is safest to ride on. Sometimes you may have to ride all over the place just to avoid being thrown off your bike.
So the road isn’t exactly a friend to motorcyclists either....A final factor which may contribute to the deaths of motorcyclists is poor road lighting. Now I have never been able to understand why the street lighting, where it exists, is so dim after dark in Kuching, the State Capital? It's a complete mystery to me, but then again, so are UFOs and ghosts.
So, imagine you are a motorcyclist. You have to both see and be seen. Not always a problem if you are in a car because you have big headlights at the front, and bright shining red fairy lights at the back. But remember, motorcycles have very small front headlights, with a narrow cone of light, and even smaller rear lights. And on top of this, motorcycles present a small, narrow profile in the dark compared to a car, and this is made even worse when the street lights, where they exist, are so dim. Not only is it difficult to see in front of you, it is also that much more difficult to be seen in turn.
Now I realise that many motorcyclists make it harder on themselves by wearing dark clothes and even sometimes neglect to fix their broken rear lights. Yes, this is a serious problem which must be addressed by the authorities concerned. But, if the street lights were brighter in the first place, I am certain that most car drivers would be able to see any motorcyclist more clearly, and in turn the motorcyclist would be able to see in front more clearly too.
So, gentle readers, I wonder how many more grieving families will have to endure the loss of their future heroes and heroines? How many more agonized screams of relatives and loved ones will have to ring out from the nation’s homes at the news of a death? And how much more blood will need to be washed off from the roadsides?
Not much more, I pray, not much more...
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