Kudos to the Penang government for their decision to put on hold the Automated Enforcement System (AES) for the island for further evaluations and studies of its practicality and utility or is it a timely project to have the AES put in place in a yet developed nation.

Don’t you think it is too hasty for the government to allow the implementation of AES in the nation?

In fact, our roads and traffic conditions nationwide are not ready to use the AES. It is like “daylight robbery” (a sort of deliberation to find faults) of motorists with AES, using high-tech cameras to catch them (motorists) for beating the red lights, for overtaking on roads with double lines and for reckless driving (weaving in and out of traffic), including for speeding in excess of the speed limited allowed for in some stretches, so that they (traffic police) can issue summonses instead of making the roads safer, driving easier and smoother.

It is all right if this AES is used in the USA, Australia and Britain or in other countries or in developed nations where there are five or more lanes on each side of the carriageway.

The roads here in our cities and towns are usually too short and narrow. Our highway roads are dual-carriage ways. Inevitably there are too many cars found caught in the queue (jam) anywhere and at any time of day. Mainly, we have too many cars here per kilometre, in this region.

Apart from that, the timing for the traffic lights change from green to red is too quick or rather too fast and, so should there be a traffic jam across the junction in front for whatever reason, then, the motorist behind, although going across the traffic junction on time at the green light, will somehow be caught inside the ‘yellow box’ at the traffic junction by the camera - and so will be fined for beating the red light.

That motorist was held up by the traffic in front which was at a standstill.

I, too, had experienced this when I tried to cross the traffic light junction, without any knowledge that it (the green light) was then at the tail end or rather ready to change to red. You see, though there is this yellow light that comes on before the lights change to red to warn motorists - it (the yellow light) often comes up too quickly and disappears in a flash. So, it (the present settings for lights change) does not really serve its intended purposes.

And, through no fault of the motorists, they were caught and fined for the “offence”.

I mean the green light should be set to flicker (flash) for a few seconds prior to the change to yellow light to give the motorist sufficient time to cross over to the other side that means, before the yellow light comes up. Also, the yellow light should be reset to stay longer then it is now before the red light is activated.

What is on AES may not be true scenario

Otherwise, what was caught in AES camera may not be the true scenario.

Of course, with too many cars on the road today, there is always an errant motorist hitting the car in front at the traffic light junction simply because the latter had abruptly stopped at the junction the very moment the green light changed to yellow. Unfortunately, the motorist behind had no idea when the green light will change to yellow, and so did not expect the car in front to stop so suddenly.

To prevent accidents at traffic lights junction, the green light, yellow light and red light changes should be reset to meet actual life behaviors, to give sufficient time for a motorist to cross the junction at traffic light junctions and to save from getting a summons.

However, looking at a different angle, the speed limits for our highways, federal road, and country roads should be increased by at least 10kph above the present speed limits. Then, it will be logical and practical to use AES to control motorists using highways, federal road and country roads because driving at 80kph or 110kph for high-tech cars today is rather slow, boring and tiresome for long distant driving.

Often these “big car” motorists tend to drive over the speed limit by 10kph, unknowingly of course, because there was no engine drag and most of all it is still comfortable.

That means, with the introduction of AES for highways, federal roads and country roads, there will bound to be many of them given summonses. And, if they were to slow down, then, it will be impossible to drive on our roads, when jams start to build up even in these places.

Well, to make driving like a “breeze” and safer, the relevant authorities responsible for implementing AES should have conducted or rather carried out thorough safety campaigns to educate and to give awareness to motorists and bikers to use the correct lane on highways,

federal road and country roads and most importantly no road user should hog any lane or road.

As for bikers, whenever there are lanes meant for motorbikes to ride on use them and so they should stay away from riding on highways and federal roads with such provisions.

The authorities given the approvals to plant all these AES cameras should have done these in-depth studies prior to implementing the system, because with the kind of roads in our country today, especially the heavy traffic loads or impact, it will render the AES void.

Especially with abundant cameras watching everywhere, no motorist is spared. That means driving home is no longer cheap but more costly when you have summonses to settle/pay up every month.