My daily commute to and fro is an absolute awakened nightmare and is totally intolerable. Being an income-earner and a mom, I leave my home at 6.30am and after dropping off the kids at school, I reach the Sunway Toll plaza at 7.10am and from then on, its hell on the highway!

Personally, on a daily basis, I spend RM9.80 on tolls and yet my travel time from Puchong to KL is not less than three hours per day! I have not calculated petrol costs for being stuck in jams caused in the name of toll collection for highways supposedly to make our commute hassle-free.

On the LDP - residents exiting out of Puchong during peak hours are stuck for almost an hour merely to pay toll and then to get on to the Federal Highway from the LDP. Often we cannot even get onto the Federal Highway at the Motorola exit and have to go ahead to U-turn at Kelana Jaya.

The jam is at a crawl if not a standstill. Then when we hit the Federal Highway, amazingly the traffic is at least moving!

On the NPE - on exiting the NPE after paying the toll of RM3.20, traffic is at a standstill for almost 20 -25 minutes soon after the Pantai Dalam Toll Plaza, until the end of the highway at Jalan Bangsar. Strangely here too, once you exit the NPE, traffic is free flowing on Jalan Bangsar. Peak hours too…

Now, it all boils down to the fact that we have reached the unacceptable situation where there is absolutely no accountability or the semblance of responsibility by the toll concessionaires and they are blatant about it.

They are primarily collecting toll and this creates the jams. At the IOI Mall interchange on the LDP, lanes are hardly demarcated, so by pure guess work and smart manoeuvring, we need to cross over to use either the Smart Tag, Touch & Go or cash.

Call their info-lines and they will tell you that this is the regular weekday peak-hour crawl – what excuse is that? I say, wake up fellow Puchongites Why the heck are we paying toll only to get stuck in a jam?

Seriously the Government should stop bickering among the selves and get down to work. What has to be focused upon is the thousands of Malaysians who are suffering daily only to fill the pockets of these unscrupulous toll collectors.

Peak hours on LDP are from 7am to 9.30am and from 5pm to 7.30pm. This is when most of us need to be on the road. The jams are so humongous and are created in the vicinity of the toll plazas. The onus then is on the toll concessionaires to find a solution to this and immediately, otherwise quit collecting toll.

As a mother, I am mindful that I do not have much time left to bring up the children properly as with I am sure with other parents.

These toll plaza jams created in the name of collection of toll to provide us with a smooth commute is instead causing an acute waste of time, seriously damaging our mental and physical health and adding to the un necessary cost of petrol for being stuck in a jam caused on account of toll collection.

It is simply unacceptable that we pay toll and get stuck in traffic. If the concessionaires are collecting toll, let them ensure a smooth flow of traffic, or else stop collecting the toll because it is ridiculous for us to pay toll to be stuck endlessly in a jam.

I appeal to your readers, if any of you know alternative routes from Puchong to KL that are toll free, please share them with us.