This is a news report published in the New Straits Times today.

M-cyclists cry foul over highway ban

KUALA LUMPUR: The ban on motorcycles on the Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya highway does not make sense to members of the Superbikers Association of Malaysia (SAM).
SAM executive chairman Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said this was particularly so as the highway had been built with facilities for motorcyclists.

“When it was first opened, I rode on the highway on my Honda Goldwing. I don’t see why Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu says the route is dangerous. The concessionaires had even built motorcycle lanes at tolls and bridges,” said the deputy information minister.

SAM president SAC II Datuk Jamaluddin Khalid said Samy Vellu’s claim that the ban would protect motorcyclists was invalid.

“We are disappointed with this because motorcyclists are safer on highways.”
According to Jamaluddin, statistics showed that 95 per cent of fatalities involving motorcyclists happened on trunk and federal roads and not on highways.

On Thursday, Samy Vellu announced the ban, claiming that the 26km highway, opened to traffic last December, had a road shoulder of up to 1.5m, making it unsafe for motorcyclists.

Superbikers’ Club Malaysia president Lt-Gen (R) Tan Sri Mohamad Ngah said Samy Vellu should have thought about that when the highway was designed.

“Don’t give excuses about not having enough space; a road is a road. Why deprive the poor from using the road?”

Moderator for motorcycle on-line forum Msportbike. com, Armand Ali, said the ban was done without a study of the matter.

HELLO!

Why are these non-paying users of tolled expressways make a fuss about it? Don’t you know motorcyclists, be they superbikers or just any other guy on a normal motorbike pose danger to road users everywhere?

I have wrote before about my experience seeing a convoy of superbikers terrorizing the North-South Expressway on a Sunday morning 3 months ago. And I even met a few superbikers speeding about 140kph on the same expressway on Friday, when Ops Sikap is being carried on!

If we are to allow superbikers on the KL-Putrajaya Expressway, will they obey the speed limit? If they cant’ even obey the speed limit on North-South Expressway which is 110kph, will they obey the 60kph and 80kph speed limit on the KL-Putrajaya Expressway?

I fully support the ban on motorcyclists on KL-Putrajaya Expressway, in addition to the existing Ampang-KL Elevated Highway and the SMART Tunnel.

However, there are many other expressways with portions of them out of bounds to motorcyclists! But, there is no enforcement! Look at the Damansara-Puchong Expressway (LDP). All the flyovers, the cable bridge across Federal Highway and the underpass at Damansara Utama are out of bounds to motorcyclists! There are signboards everywhere instructing motorcyclists to use the traffic lights junctions instead. But does any of them obey it?

How many times have you seen motorcyclists ride against traffic flow, weave in and out of traffic, speeding between lanes during traffic congestion, disobey traffic lights?

Where’s the enforcement?