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Expat driving in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)


Firstly, let me start by stating that I'm well aware of the inadequacies of Malaysian drivers. This discussion does not imply that expat drivers are worse than Malaysian drivers in Malaysia.

I was wondering if any expat drivers here feel that Malaysian drivers should be taught to follow rules, and if they feel that they are the ones who should do it.

Following are a couple of examples which led to this line of thought:

1. In a 3-lane highway, the expat driver was driving with two-thirds of his car on the emergency lane, so that no one could pass him on the emergency lane. (He got very upset when a local driver squeezed into the 3rd lane so the expat driver ended up being the one on the emergency lane.)

2. On another 3-lane highway, an MPV with an expat in it hogged the right lane at the speed limit even when the other two lanes were free as if he didn't want anyone to go beyond the speed limit and overtake him. This was in spite of the fact that there were many signs saying "Keep left unless overtaking". Actually, thinking over it now, I'm not sure if those signs were in Malay.

Any thoughts? I would love to have different perspectives. That's one of the advantages of IN as we can get many different views here. Hope it does degenerate into a comparison of expat vs. local drivers though.

Kuala Lumpur Forum

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