White Satria Jumps Into the River!

1. This was a crash that happened in Kuala Lumpur, where a white Proton Satria lost control and "jump" into Sungai Klang (river). Luckily the driver was safe and he managed to tell us the life-threatening incident in the email. Since the writing is in Malay language, I will write a short summary about his experience.

2. Don't take off your seatbelt during the airborne. Open the car door before hitting the water. This will make things easier because once in the water, it is almost impossible to open the door due to high pressure. Also, after landing, don't panic and control your composure. Break the car windows if the door is jammed. Immediately, you should swim away from the car if you manage to get out. That is all. :)


Jam 0130, 17 Ogos 2009, aku dalam perjalanan pulang ke Bukit Tunku selepas supper bersama rakan di Kg. Baru.. Setiba di Jalan Kinabalu, ada sebuah kereta menghimpit aku di sebelah kiri.. Aku cuba mengelak ke kanan dan terlanggar pembahagi jalan di sebelah kanan lalu kereta aku tercampak perlahan ke kiri jalan dengan keadaan tayar belakang over steer.. Untuk mengawal kereta dari terus berpusing, aku pun tekan la pedal minyak.. Oleh kerana jalan licin, tayar depan aku spin lalu tercampak dengan lajunya ke dalam Sungai Klang..

Dengan berbekalkan ilmu yang aku pelajari dari Discovery Channel, aku sempat membuka pintu sebelum kereta aku masuk ke dalam sungai.. Air masuk ke dalam kereta dengan lajunya kerana paras air sungai yang tinggi disebabkan hujan pada petang tersebut.. Cabut seat belt, aku terus pecahkan cermin sebelah driver untuk mengurangkan tekanan yang menghimpit pintu sebelah driver sambil membuka pintu dan terus berenang ke luar kereta melawan arus sungai yang agak deras....

Aku selamat.. Cuma cedera ringan di tangan, siku, bahu, dahi, tengkuk dan juga peha.. Syukur.. Nak kena bertaubat ni..Kereta aku mungkin total lost coz chassis dah lari habis.. Pillar dah bengkok..

Aku bersyukur masih selamat.. Banyak kebarangkalian yang tidak berlaku yang mungkin akan menyebabkan kematian aku seperti short circuit masa aku masih dalam kereta atau kereta aku hentam konkrit yang kat tepi sungai tu.. syukur....

Berkongsi ilmu sikit, Kalau kereta dah nak masuk air, cepat-cepat buka pintu dan tingkap.. Macam kes aku, aku sempat buka pintu je.. Tapi bila dah jatuh, pintu tu tertutup balik... Tapi tak rapat la.. Even tak rapat pun, aku masih susah nak buka balik disebabkan tekanan air yang kuat.. Aku kena pecahkan cermin tingkap sebelah aku untuk kurangkan tekanan air dan buka pintu.. Tekanan masih kuat masa tu tapi tidak la sekuat kalau tingkap tak buka.. Aku cuma mampu buka pintu sikit je, muat-muat badan aku nak keluar..

JANGAN TANGGALKAN SEAT BELT SEBELUM KERETA MENDARAT.. Ini penting.. Seat belt memang akan menyusahkan anda keluar.. Lagi-lagi yang pakai harness dan full bucket.. Tapi dalam kes aku, seat belt la yang selamatkan aku dari terhumban ke cermin depan aku yang memang dah pecah.. Seat belt juga la yang buatkan aku masih melekat kat seat.. Kalau tak pakai, aku rasa air dah tolak aku kena kat body kereta dah, tak pun kena kat cermin depan yang dah pecah..

Dah masuk dalam air, memang lemas.. Macam kes aku, lepas kereta dah mendarat kat dasar sungai, air terus masuk sampai tenggelam kereta.. Takde kesian dah... Lemas camne pun, JANGAN GELABAH.. Mula memang aku gelabah.. Sebab aku gelabah la aku buang masa dalam 5 minit kat dalam kereta untuk cabut seat belt.. Lepas 5 minit baru aku try tenangkan diri dan hasilnya, aku dapat cabut seat belt senang je..

Dah cabut seat belt, cuba cari jalan keluar dari kereta secepat mungkin.. Macam kes aku, aku pecah cermin belah driver dan buka pintu.. Aku keluar ikut pintu.. Kalau terpaksa pecah cermin, pecah pakai kaki.. Aku pecah pakai tangan sebab aku dah tak fikir apa.. Akibatnya, aku mengalami kesukaran untuk berenang sebab tangan aku pedih giler..

Dah keluar, JANGAN LEPAK ATAS BUMBUNG KERETA menunggu bantuan.. Berenang secepat mungkin ke tebing.. Tak reti berenang pun, cuba juga berenang.. Berenang macam anjing pun takpe, asalkan berjaya jauhkan diri dari kereta.. Kita tak tahu bila kereta akan meletup atau short circuit akan berlaku.. Macam kes aku, aku tak berenang ke tebing.. Aku asyik fikir nak selamatkan beg dan juga external drive office awek aku.. Pas dah keluar kereta, aku hulur tangan kat boot untuk amik beg, kemudian baru aku berenang ke tebing.. Nasib aku baik sebab tak jadi apa-apa... Aku tak dapat bayangkan kalau masa aku tengah sibuk nak tarik beg tu kereta aku short atau terbakar.. Mahu rentung aku..

Itu sahaja yang mampu aku kongsi pengalaman.. Harap korang boleh ambil masa baca apa yang aku taip ni untuk kegunaan kemudian hari.. Kita tak mintak tapi takdir kita siapa yang tahu.. Yang paling penting, bawa kereta berhati-hati dan ikut peraturan.. Nak mod kereta bagi laju boleh tapi biar guna dengan cara yang betul..

Trooper Turns Turtle

1. I was stuck in the traffic jam on the Seremban - Kuala Lumpur PLUS highway few months ago. Can you guess the reason for the traffic jam is?

2. It was a 4WD turned turtle at the side of the road. I repeat it once again, AT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. So, why the heck the highway traffic becomes very slow in motion? Supposedly, there will not be any problem since it happened at the side of the road. That is Malaysian - love to see, few to help.

3. By the way, please don't drive too fast on the wet road. This accident happened during a heavy downpour.

Malaysia International Road Safety Exhibition (MIREX)

1. Malaysia Internation Road Safety Exhibition (MIREX)is the first and the only road safety exhibition of its kind in the region. MIREX is held at MIECC, The Mines Resort City, Serdang from 13-16 August 2009.

2. They are roughly over 200 booth to showcase road safety equipments and many more. The exhibition also has lots of fun games for kids. Here are some of the photos.

Neglection of Ladder Safety. Stupid.

1. They are very creative yet their lives were in jeopardy. This is the example of neglecting of ladder safety. If you were one of these people, we can tell that you would be behave the same on the road, i.e. being stupid and become hazard to other road users. Below are some more photos. Please do not do this action at your place.

Resource: Email

How GPS Will Ensure Bus Passengers's Safety?

1. Express bus drivers will not get away with reckless driving and speeding once a national centre is set up to monitor express buses via satellite. The soon-to-be-established hub will operate like an air traffic control centre and track buses fitted with GPS (Global Positioning System) devices 24 hours a day.

2. Above is the interactive diagram on how the GPS will ensure bus passengers' safety. It looks very doable. However, without proper monitoring, even a high-end technology can't solve express busses accidents on the road. Let's hope this is not just another "profitable-excuse" made by some party to take advantage of the situation.

Resource: New Straits Times

Naza Suria Crashed by a Reversed Lorry

1. A lorry laden with bricks went into reverse gear crashing into a car driven by a couple in Seremban, Malaysia. Fortunately, only the female passenger in the car suffered minor injuries and the other escaped with no injury at all.

2. Recently trucks and trailers are just fearsome, killing so many people on the road already. Let's go to the basic by learning ABC which stands for ALWAYS BE CAREFUL.




Resource: Local Newspaper

Cellphone Use and Driving Distraction by VTTI

1. Several large-scale, naturalistic driving studies (using sophisticated cameras and instrumentation in participants’ personal vehicles conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute VTTI), provide a clear picture of driver distraction and cell phone use under real-world driving conditions. Combined, these studies continuously observed drivers for more than 6 million miles of driving. A snapshot of risk estimates from these studies is shown in the table below.

2. “Given recent catastrophic crash events and disturbing trends, there is an alarming amount of misinformation and confusion regarding cell phone and texting use while behind the wheel of a vhicle. The findings from our research at VTTI can help begin to clear up these misconceptions as it is based on real-world driving data. We conduct transportation safety research in an effort to equip the public with information that can save lives,” says Dr. Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

3. In VTTI’s studies that included light vehicle drivers and truck drivers, manual manipulation of phones such as dialing and texting of the cell phone lead to a substantialincrease in the risk of being involved in a safety‐critical event (e.g., crash or near crash). However, talking or listening increased risk much less for light vehicles and not at all for trucks. Text messaging on a cell phone was associated with the highest risk of all cell phone related tasks.

Explanation of Findings

4. Eye glance analyses were conducted to assess where drivers were looking while involved in a safety‐critical event and performing cell phone tasks. The tasks that draw the driver’s eyes away from the forward roadway were those with the highest risk.

5. Several recent high visibility trucking and transit crashes have been directly linked to texting from a cell phone. VTTI’s research showed that text messaging, which had the highest risk of over 20 times worse than driving while not using a phone, also had the longest duration of eyes off road time (4.6 s over a 6‐s interval). This equates to a driver traveling the length of a football field at 55 mph without looking at the roadway. Talking/listening to a cell phone allowed drivers to maintain eyes on the road and were not associated with an increased safety risk tonearly the same degree.

6. Recent results from other researchers using driving simulators suggest that talking and listening is as dangerous as visually dstracting cell phone tasks. The results from VTTI’s naturalistic driving studies clearly indicate that this is not the case. For example, talking and listening to a cell phone is not nearly as risky as driving while drunk at the legal limit of alcohol. Recent comparisons made in the literature greatly exaggerate the cell phone risk relative to the very serious effects of alcool use, which increases the risk of a fatal crash approximately seven times that of sober driving. Using simple fatal crash and phone use statistics, if talking on cell phones was as risky as driving while drunk, the number of fatal crashes would have increased roughly 50% in the last decade instead of remaining largely unchanged.

7. These results show conclusively that a real key to significantly improving safety is keeping your eyes on the road. In contrast, “cognitively intense” tasks (e.g., emotional conversations, “books‐on‐tape”, etc.) can have a measurable effect in the laboratory, but the actual driving risks are much lower in comparison.

8. VTTI’s Recommendations (Based on Findings from Research Studies)

• Driving is a visual task and non‐driving activities that draw the driver’s eyes away from the roadway, such as texting and dialing, should always be avoided.

• Texting should be banned in moving vehicles for all drivers. As shown in the table, this cell phone task has the potential to create a true crash epidemic if texting‐type tasks continue to grow in popularity and the generation of frequent text messagesenders reach driving age in large number.

• “Headset” cell phone use is not substantially safer than “hand‐held” use because the primary risk is associated with both tasks is answering, dialing, and other tasks that require your eyes to be off the road. In contrast, “true hands-free” phone use, such as voice activated systems, are less risky if they are designed well enough so the driver does not have to take their eyes off the road often or for long eriods.

• All cell phone use should be banned for newly licensed teen drivers. Our research has shown that teens tend to engage in cell phone tasks much more frequently, and in much more risky situations, than adults. Thus, our studies indicate that teens are four times more likely to get into a related crash or near crash event than their adultconterparts.

The Disconnect Between Naturalistic and Simulator Research

9. It is important to keep in mind that a driving simulator is not actual driving. Driving simulators engage participants in tracking tasks in a laboratory. As such, researchers that conduct simulator studies must be cautious when suggesting that conclusions based on simulator studies are aplicable to actual driving. With the introduction of naturalistic driving studies that record drivers (through continuous video and kinematic sensors) in actual driving situations, we now have a scientific method to study driver behavior in real‐world driving conditions in the presence of real-world daily pressures. As such, if the point of transportation safety research is to understand driver behavior in the real‐world (e.g., increase crash risk due to cell phone use), and when conflicting findings occur between naturalistic studies and simulator studies, findings from the real‐world, and not the simulator‐world, must be considered the gold standard.

10. It is also critical to note that some results of recent naturalistic driving studies, including those highlighted here as well as others (e.g., Sayer, Devonshire and Flanagan, 2007) are at odds with results obtained from simulator studies. Future researchis necessary to explore the reasons why simulator studies sometimes do not reflect studies conducted in actua driving conditions (i.e., the full context of the driving environment). It may be, as Sayer, Devonshire and Flanagan (2007) note, that controlled investigations cannot account for driver choice behavior and risk perception as it actually occurs in real‐world driving. If this assessment is accurate, the generalizability of simulator findings, at least in some cases, may be greatly limited outside of the simulated environment.

Resource

Toyota Prius Coming to Malaysia: Price and Photos

1. I have good news to tell. The best selling hybrid car in US car market for years is finally will reach Malaysia market. To begin with, most people in the world love Toyota Prius because of its sleekness and fuel efficiency. Simple definition of hybrid car by Paultan as follows:

A hybrid vehicle essentially combines two or more power sources to move the vehicle. It commonly refers to hybrid electric vehicles, which combine a combustion engine with electric motors.

2. The price is estimated to be around RM160k to RM200k. It is quite expensive but with the new Malaysia government policy on hybrid car, the price will be expected to be less from above estimation. Anyway, I can't wait to have one :)



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