Works Minister S Samy Vellu today ticked off Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) researches who found faults in the design of the country's highways and roads.

The ongoing studies by the university researchers, found that the present design failed to take into account that more than 50 percent of road users in Malaysia are motorcyclists.

Commenting on this, the minister said there was nothing wrong with the roads and highways here as they were made according to world standard.

He said roads and highways all over the globe used the British standard, which had been accepted as the world standard.

"However if USM researchers want to come up with a standard which is different from the world standard, let them do it," Samy was quoted as saying in a Bernama report.

Bad attitude

The minister said bad attitude among drivers and motorcyclists were to blame for the road problems in the country.

He said building a separate highway for motorcyclists would not stop them from "committing suicide" as they were more concerned with business (activity) than their lives.

"Can you design a road that will stop motorcyclists from riding against the traffic flow. They even beat the red light. Can you design a road that will stop them from beating the red light?" he asked.

The government has spent RM130 million for building motorcycle lanes.

"We also have problem when some drivers parked their cars at the motorcycle lanes which resulted in accidents later," he said.