The least respected colour in Malaysia

All of us travel a lot on the road everyday. We come across many traffic lights. Traffic lights are a communicating tool. The colour of the light indicates to us on what to do. Simple enough, "RED" means we should come to a complete stop before the line marker or right behind the vehicle which is before the line marker. "GREEN" you can move your vehicle to your desired direction. Sometimes you will see arrowed "RED" and "GREEN", which means the same except it only applies to the direction indicated by the arrow.

Then there is another colour called by so many names.... "AMBER", "ORANGE", "YELLOW" and so on. We name it as "YELLOW". This yellow comes after the green. It means, slow down your vehicle and get ready to stop. In some places, yellow comes after the red too. It means, get ready to move your vehicle.

Anyhow the "YELLOW" that comes out after the green has been abused terribly. Once we see the green vanishing and the yellow emerging, we press the accelerator harder that anything and we usually beat F1 drivers' over-taking speed. Even some of us have "turbo-charged" engine that cannot be stopped once we have pressed the accelerator. In aviation it is called as "V1" signal ; take-off cannot be aborted. Most of the traffic light system doesn't have the yellow coming after after the red (or before the green). Most of us will look for the yellow on the other side's traffic light. Once we see the yellow light for theother lane, we start to move our vehicle (not getting prepared to move the vehicle but move the vhicle itself).

We will come to an understanding that we will be ready to forgive the abuse of the "YELLOW" when we see how the "RED" is disrespected totally.

In today's situation in Malaysia, the "RED" light in the traffic light system means,

• Stop or
• Slow down
• Look for any policeman, if none, proceed to go
• Strictly don't bother about the road user who has the "GREEN" traffic light signal

You can see this happening at almost every traffic lights, regardless of heavy traffic or not. Motorcyclists have never been bothered about the "RED" light at the traffic lights. Nowadays, even car drivers are also following this trend. Just try to count the number of happenings when you are on road today.

The worst which I cannot digest is the one at Jalan Heng Choo Thian & Jalan Bagan Luar junction. The Butterworth Police Station is just adjacent to this junction and yet many motorist beat the "RED" and move on. It seems that none are bothered about the police station nearby.

Anyhow, I think that the police are still respected in some way but the least respected colour in Malaysia is RED light.

Subra