As the nation progresses, our road manners keep sliding back. It is a shame that despite the government and the relevant road and transport authorities doing their level best to provide better roads, motorists and motorcyclists are adamant in not keeping to road rules.

It is increasingly a nightmare-experience for law-abiding motorists to drive anywhere in our country - be it on our spanking highways or narrow municipal roads.

Motorcyclists weave in and out of city and town roads. They beat traffic lights without any care for other users. They speed on the right (fast) lanes along highways. They squeeze through traffic jams, bruising the cars.

Meanwhile, motorcyclists are also faced with the predicament of motorists conquering the motorcycle lanes provided by the highway operators. It is the standard these days to be switching lanes without any cares and selfishly doing so.

Another common ugly sight is the way road users plough their pedals or throttles as they race, trailing behind ambulances.

All these bad attitudes stem from corrupt mindsets. It causes undue stress to law-abiding citizens. It is often the ultimate reason for bloody accidents.

And we are left with kilometres of traffic jams and  fuel wastage not to mention the excessive wear and tear on clutch and brake parts. And let us also not forget the national productivity aggregate lost daily on the roads.

It is time that the police and road authorities initiated a nationwide clampdown on such deteriorating road manners. It appears that summonses are not effective. Then perhaps, such abusers should be hauled away from the roads and made to do immediate community service as punishment.

In addition, the employers of such abusers should also be notified.

To effectively arrest the ugliness on the roads, we should also not leave matters to the transport and police authorities. In fact, there are far more stakeholders who should responsibly contribute to arrest the problem.

The Ministry of Education must introduce compulsory road safety subjects right up to upper secondary levels. Universities must demand good grades in such subjects to consider admission.

Employers must introduce pay cuts or a freeze on increments for those found to have broken road rules. The employees unions must support such initiatives too.

The Tourism Ministry must collaborate with the industry players to come up with effective road safety campaigns if they are determined to keep the national tagline 'Truly Asia'.

If we are able to commit a national effort aggressively, we should be able to curb the menacing road habits of Malaysians in a reasonably short period of time. And with that, we will be able to demolish our global reputation for dangerous driving.