A week before last, I had a long week. I guess God, almost immediately, answered my prayer for the ultimate long-drive adventure since I long for one to clear stuff in my head. Having a long drive somehow allows me to think clearly.
I had a marketing workshop in Johor Bahru on Tuesday. I went there a day before. It was a 4-hour drive from Shah Alam. Due to the school holidays in Singapore, there were basically fewer options when it comes to hotels. The only ones left are the shitty ones—and I decided to book GBW Hotel, the okay-version of it although it is still shitty. My workshop started at 8.30 am and finished at 12.30 pm.
I left the StartiiX office in Johor Bahru where the workshop was done, for Shah Alam right after that. I reached home around 8.30 pm after a few coffee break stops. The next day, after breakfast, I left for Georgetown, Penang—drove up there for a job interview. It went well. I survived the 3 hours marathon with the CEO and the HR boss. Once done, I quickly changed my attire and headed home right after that. On my way, I made a quick dinner stop at Kuala Kangsar. There was a nice food joint there where I had my grilled fish, tom yam and rice, plus some add-ons. I reached home around 10 pm or so and took a nice, long bath before hitting the sack.
The next day, I drove to Kuantan for a meeting. Since the meeting started late in the evening, I decided to stay for the night. After checking out the following day, I left for Muar. It is a town down south in the state of Johor. I took the Gambang-Segamat federal road that day and reached Muar about 3 hours later.
After almost a thousand kilometres of road trips, I came back home. Then I told my wife that the road condition here in this country, in general, pretty much sucks. The way it is being administered is as if the people don’t really deserve to have a good quality road for their vehicles. I don’t know whether it is the bribing issues, the lack of sense of responsibility or both. Or, the reason could be something else.
The Gambang-Segamat stretch is full of potholes although there are areas where the road is good since they are newly resurfaced. The state of Johor and Pahang, to me, need to work harder on this, really. Johor Bahru, even in the city centre itself, has many potholes. Just too many of them. This never-settle city is always and forever under construction. The same goes for Penang. This tiny island has issues with not just too many vehicles on the road and smaller-than-normal road sizes, but also terrible quality of maintenance—beyond words.
After the Asia Pacific Climate Week 2023 in Johor Bahru ended, when I was involved in the PR side of the work, I went back home after staying in Johor Bahru for 10 days. My colleague and I decided to take the federal road, from Johor Bahru to Batu Pahat, then Melaka. I guess the stretch of the route is about 200 plus kilometres in total. While the overall experience is okay, there are a number of areas that require urgent attention. It’s crazy. The feeling was as if I needed to change my sedan car to SUV as soon as possible.
Even in Malaysia’s richest state of Selangor which boasts billions of Ringgit in the coffer, the road condition sucks big time. If you do not believe me, just drive up from Shah Alam to Klang and have a little tour in Klang and continue it further to the Kuala Selangor areas. You’ll get what I mean.
You see, this is the part that I don’t understand. No matter whom we voted for, nobody is making any improvements—nobody. Those local council people, don’t they use the road to go to work, go back home and for the weekend driving? I wonder why they do not act on it. The way I see it, the original road condition was good when the road was first completed. Yet after years of usage, the surface began to experience wear and tear. This is where the maintenance contractors come into the picture. In my point of view, this is where the problem starts—the unethical contractors who just want to complete the job with shabby qualities take the picture as proof saying that the work is done great and claim the payment. Yet after weeks or months, the potholes begin to emerge. And no one cares about it.
Even after complaining, no one is looking at this seriously enough—until somebody died. Come on, are Malaysians not worthy enough to have better-quality roads across the country?
