Driving in Malaysia

11 April 2011 - Recently there has been a lot of debate about the driving skills of Malaysians. Statistics reveal that men in Malaysia were 2.4 times more accident-prone than their female counterparts, The Star, a Malaysian paper, reported. That bit of information was provided by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros). Women, however, have been increasingly involved in accidents since 2006. The amount of women in road accidents jumped by almost 100% from 2006 to 2009. Miros director-general Dr. Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah said that men generally possess superior psychomotor skills - this causes some of them to be sometimes excessively confident on the road. "As a result, men have the general tendency to drive at high speeds, to take chances and be a greater risk on the road," he explained. Nonetheless, Dr. Farhan said that both genders were equally at risk for being in an accident. He recommended proper risk management, driving competency and prioritisation of safety as essentials in reducing the risk of accidents.