Driving in UK is systematic. Driving in Malaysia is 'tunggang-terbalik'

One thing I love and will surely miss about Britain is driving. Driving in the UK is a wonderful experience Alhamdulillah. 

People flash their lights at you to give way, they stop when you step on the zebra crossing, they let you go pass when you signal, they give you way in a tight space. It is completely different from driving in Malaysia. 

I was driving on the M2 motorway to Deal, Kent. It was a 2 hour journey from South London to visit my in-laws and it was a beautiful experience. Slow vehicles on the left lane, fast overtaking vehicles on the right. People give signal when they want to overtake. It was pleasant. The scenery too was beautiful. I used to take the countryside for granted but Allah has made the whole world beautiful. It was winter and the trees were either bare or covered with brown leaves. either side of the highway were fields of meadows.] It was freezing cold and some parts of the way were foggy but it was nice. 

Even though cars were driving fast but they behaved themselves. I wonder to myself, why do drivers in Malaysia have to be so reckless? What is there to be proud of driving like a lunatic. People drive with their egos, they leave their brains behind and they're proud about it? Is it a good thing to be proud of something that kills others, that takes the lives of children, parents, husbands and wives? How can pride be more important than the live of another person.

That's when the scary thing hit me...I don't think people think at all. They enter a car, a machine and they shut their minds. Are we really ready for modern progress when our mentality is still stuck in the times of horse carts and 'kereta lembu'? It is an attitude problem and that needs to change if any improvement was going to happen on the roads.

It just feels like in Britain, the traffic was civilized. I really felt that I was driving in a civilized environment but what does that makes us in the so called 'developing' world, uncivilized? I think people can see that very clearly and they don't tell us but they form an opinion about us...and because we have no value for our own lives then, others do not value us. Our life becomes cheap and they don't even care when millions of people in the developing world die of something or another...accidents, earth quakes, bombs etc...etc...


Our attitude has to change and it should change because we are Muslims and Allah has made life sacred. We have to value life as sacred, a gift from God. Then, we need to develop our Islamic personality which means developing responsibility and accountability. We are responsible for entering a car, turning on the engine and driving it on the road. We are responsible to drive safely and carefully and not to endanger the lives of others and ourselves. Why? because we are accountable to Allah and we will face Allah on the day of Judgement and we will be asked about every single thing we do including how we drive a car.

We need to develop mercy, tolerance and generosity on the roads because a Muslim has mercy, has tolerance towards others and that tolerance is towards the mubah behaviour of others NOT the haraam. We should not tolerate haraam but we should tolerate mubah so, give people right of way, let the pedestrians cross the roads, and pedestrians try to cross the roads quickly instead of 'terlenggang-lenggok' like you're carrying a turtle shell on your back. Be generous on the road. it will not kill you to give way but it might kill you to drive recklessly.

We should truly feel ashamed by the jungle, survival of the fittest mentality on our roads.