Offenses are committed when a person breach a certain laws. One of the most common offenses is breaching the traffic laws. Traffic offense is probably the most common offenses committed in any countries of the world. Traffic laws are made in order to ensure the safety of all the vehicles and persons who used the roads. In Malaysia, motorcyclists are the most common road users who break the traffic laws. Because of motorcyclists are the most road users who break the traffic laws, they are also the one who are mostly involved in road accidents. Most motorcyclists seem to understand that the traffic laws are not meant for them but for only for others to follow. Most of the time we saw motorcyclists are making the most traffic offenses. One of the most common traffic offenses, which are committed by motorcyclists, is to ignore the traffic light. Most motorcyclists think when the light is red, only motorcars drivers should stop but not motorcyclists. It appears to me, at all times the motorcyclists in Malaysia are always in a hurry. The way they ride the motorcycles, it looks as if they are the busiest person in this world. They often ride their motorcycles at a lightning speed. I am sure those motorcyclists are normal human being, who will be hurt when involved in road accident. However the way motorcyclists ride their motorcycles; it appears to me as if they are not scared of any injury or even death. In Malaysia, in most cases, motorcars drivers will stop their cars at the junction when the traffic light is red but not to some of the motorcyclists. Some motorcyclists ignore red traffic light and continue to ride their motorcycles. I think this phenomenon at the junction with traffic light is so common only in Malaysia but not in any other countries. When there are policemen around the corner only then I noticed motorcyclists in Malaysia will be observing the rules of traffic light. This behavior of our motorcyclists is very unpleasant and very rude to other road users.
Why do Malaysians motorcyclists behave in such a very unethical ways? Our motorcyclists are so unethical when compared to the motorcyclists in many countries in the western world. What are the reasons, our motorcyclists behave so unethically on the roads. Why our motorcyclists ride their motorcycles in such a speed, which often strike fear to all who are near to them. I do not know what our motorcyclists are trying to show or to achieve by riding in such a very high speed. It is astonished to see, our motorcyclists are having pleasure and fun out of riding motorcycles with such a high speed on public roads. I have not seen or have not known of any countries in this world, where the youngsters are having pleasure and fun out of riding motorcycles in such a high speed on public roads. Malaysia seems to be leading the world in this so call, an illegal sport event. In Malaysia, the youngsters who are having pleasure and fun out of riding motorcycles with a high speed on public roads are call as mat rempit. These mat rempit often organized illegal sport events among themselves, at the middle of the night, on public roads and the winner of the event will be given a reward to sleep with a beautiful girl, known as bohsia. How such unhealthy sport event has developed in Malaysia? What is wrong with our youth and our system of education? Who had designed our system of education, which ends up with such an outcomes? How Malaysian educators can developed an educational system, which is able to produce youngsters with such weird behavior. What is wrong with our teachers and ustaz, who supposed to teach our children good behavior? What type of education and training are given by our parents to our youths at their homes? In my opinion, Malaysia does not seem to be able to educate their youths to become good citizens. The presence of mat rempit and mat dadah in our society clearly shows that the outcomes of our primary and secondary education are not commendable and questionable. Who is to be blame? All of us are to be blame but the first to be blame is our leaders.
Why such erroneous culture has developed among our youth in our country? All of us must admit that we have failed in producing an excellent, responsible and ethical youths. How are we going to treat our youths with such abnormal behaviors? Behaviors are related to belief and mindset. Both belief and mindsets are influenced by the words that our youth are hearing from their parent, teachers and their friends. Wrong or bad words that they hear from them will lead to our youths to have wrong belief and wrong mindset. Initially our youths are hearing the wrong words from their parents, teachers and friends and later on our youths are speaking the same wrong words to others. Speaking and hearing the same wrong words repeatedly, will finally lead to wrong belief and wrong mindset. Both the wrong belief and wrong mindset will lead to wrong behaviors. Our youths have the abnormal behaviors because they have wrong belief and wrong mindset. Our youths are the products of their parents, teachers and their friends. Association of our youths with their parents, teachers and friends, who themselves are having bad behaviors will produce youth with bad behaviors. The bad behaviors of our youth are manifested when they are riding the motorcycles on the public roads. mat rempits and mat dadah is the product of our poor and bad education system. My question is, when, should we start to educate our children? In Islam, we should be educating our children from the day they are able to talk. Do we do this? No, we are not doing what our Prophet Muhammad saw want us to do. Who should teach them? The government must train good teachers to teach our young children. In Malaysia, we start to teach our children only at the age of seven. In order to teach our children the correct belief and correct mindset, Prophet saw ordered us to start teaching our children when our children are still babies. According to experts, correct belief and correct mindset are learned from the time the child is born until the child is about six years old.
Contrary to Islam, we start to educate our children only at the age of seven. Prophet Muhammad saw had advised us to teach our children when they are still babies. Our Prophet saw told us to teach our children to speak about Kalimah; there is no God except Allah, from the day our children are able to talk. Our Prophet saw told us to teach our children about Allah and the fear of Allah. Do we as Muslims really follow the advice of Prophet Muhammad saw? I think there are no Muslims in all over the world who teaches their children about Allah even while their children are still in the cradles. The outcomes that we observe in our children, clearly indicates to us that we are not teaching our children about Allah and the greatness of Allah when they are still babies. I think many Muslims know about the Hadis that we have to learn from the cradles to the graves but Allah does not give Muslims the understanding of this Hadis and the ability to practice the Hadis. Where are the so calls Muslims educators in this world? Why they are not developing a practical method to teach Muslims children even when they are in the cradles? Why Muslim scholars are not talking about these important subjects of imparting correct belief and correct mindset to the children when the children are still in the cradles. Our scholars are busy trying to teach the olds about iman or belief when iman and belief should have been learned when we are still babies. According to experts, correct belief and correct mindset need to be learned before we reach the age of seven. When a child has reached the age of seven, his or her education on belief and mindset are completed. Although there are many Muslims who knows that Muslims need to learn from the time they are in the cradles until they are in the graves yet only very few Muslims who practically obeyed the Hadis.
If our Muslims educators do understand the meaning of that Hadis, they will definitely develop a practical method to teach correct belief and correct mindset to children even when they are in the cradles. In my opinion, Muslims scholars only know about this Hadis but they do not have the belief in this Hadis as well as they do not have the belief on any other Hadis of the Prophet Muhammad saw. When we only know about the Hadis, we will not be able to translate the Hadis into action. We will only be able to translate a Hadis or a verse of Quran into actions when we have believed in the Hadis and the verse of the Quran. Since many Muslims, including Muslim scholars are only Islam in the mouth, many Muslims are not able to translate either the Quran or the Hadis into actions. Our children, before the age of seven, need to learn about correct belief and correct mental outlook. Correct belief and correct mindset are the foundation of their behaviors. Our education system does not include the education on instilling correct belief and correct mental outlook in our children. Ideally the education on correct belief and correct mindset should be implemented on the children from the day the children were born until the day the children are about six years old. With the grace of Allah, I have developed an audio therapy that with the permission of Allah will correct belief and mental outlook of children. The therapy is known as Taska Bestari and the outcomes of the children who had used this therapy have shown very remarkable results. Correct belief and correct mental outlook is the foundation of correct behaviors. In Malaysia, we have many persons with erroneous behaviors because we do not teach our children correct belief and correct mental outlook when they are still babies.
Why some of our youths and some of our old folks, also do not want to obey traffic rules? Some of our old folks also commit traffic offenses when they ride motorcycles or drive taxis. In my opinion, a person who does not obey the traffic laws is a person who has wrong behavior. The wrong behavior is due to his or her wrong belief and wrong mental outlook. What are the wrong belief and the wrong mental outlook do these peoples have? They have the belief that to disobey traffic laws is not wrong, because the rules are made by men and not by Allah. In Malaysia, many Muslims have the belief that we can disregard the rules made by men. This is not true. Our leaders make all the laws in Malaysia and Allah has ordered us to obey the orders of our leaders, provided the orders are not contradictory to the orders of Allah. However, in Malaysia, many do not know this relationship and many who do not want to obey the laws, which are made by the leaders including the traffic laws. Many Muslims in Malaysia seem to believe and think that we do not need to obey the rules that come from the parliament. Since traffic laws are also laws made in the parliament, many Muslims in Malaysia think and believe that it is not sinful to disregard the traffic laws. This wrong belief can only be treated when the government made it compulsory for all motorcars and motorcycles drivers to use audio therapy known as Pemandu Bestari, before they are eligible to be given a driving license.
I had proposed many years ago the use of Pemandu Bestari to the Road Safety Department of Malaysia. Although the Director General of Road Safety Department has agreed to use the therapy but when the idea was presented to Jabatan Pengangkutan Jalan (JPJ) the idea was rejected and because of that, the project was abandoned. In my opinion, JPJ is not so serious in minimizing traffic offenses. Why they are not serious in minimizing traffic offenses? In my opinion, when there are more traffic offenses, there will be more summonses issued by JPJ and when there are more summonses being issued by JPJ, it means more money to JPJ. As usual, peoples love money. In my opinion, the reason why JPJ rejected the idea of using audio therapy to correct belief and mindset of Malaysian’s drivers and motorcyclists is the love of money. We cannot have both money and safety at the same time. Operation Sikap or Ops Sikap which is done by JPJ, every year during the festival seasons are not an operation to correct the behaviors of Malaysian motorcar drivers and motorcyclists but rather an operation to collect more money. Operasi Sikap is a more indirect way of the government to obtain more money from the public. I think the Malaysian government is not focus on what they really want .Does Malaysian government want more peoples to make more traffic offenses and therefore gains more money or does the government want to have roads, which are safe to be used by all Malaysians?
Actually, the government is loosing more money and human capital with more road accidents. The money obtains by the government from traffic offenses is less if compared to the lost of money and human capital from road accidents. If our government, want to have more money collected from traffic offenses, then our government should not do anything at all on road safety. There is no point in making more traffic laws and regulations if we do not want to change the public belief and mindset on road safety. We can only change the behaviors of the peoples on road safety by changing the peoples belief and mindset toward road safety. The Ops Sikap, which is conducted by JPJ every year, will not change the driving behaviors of Malaysians as there is absolutely no relationship at all between behaviors and punishment. Behaviors are only related to the way we believe and the way we think. We should not call the operation conducted by JPJ during the festival seasons as Operasi Sikap but rather we should call it as the operation to collect more money from the public. I have written in many of my previous articles that, with the exception of believers, the basic nature of men is to love money. Road Safety Department wants safety while JPJ want to collect more money. Who should decide? In this case, the Prime Minister should decide on the direction of road safety in this country.
If our government is serious in curtailing traffic offenses, besides using audio therapy, our government should employ civilians who are unemployed to become part-time traffic policemen. These part-time traffic policemen should be positioned at strategic and accident prone areas in the country and equipped with camera so that they are able to photograph the traffic offenders. All traffic offenders should be given heavy penalties and about 10% of the money collected from the penalties should be given as salary to the part-time traffic policemen. In this way, many unemployed Malaysians will become employed as part-time traffic policemen and at the same time helping the government to curtail traffic offenses. These part-time traffic policemen should not be wearing uniforms and work during assorted hours of the day. In this way, the public are trained to obey traffic rules even when there are no policemen around. In my opinion, the government must be serious in curtailing traffic offenses and one of the important reasons why our roads are always jammed with cars and motorcycles is because; they are so many traffic offenders from among the motorcar drivers and motorcyclists in Malaysia.
In Kuala Lumpur, particularly during the peak hours, there are so many from among the motorcars drivers and motorcyclists who break traffic rules, making driving in Kuala Lumpur to be not a pleasant experience. All peoples except the believers fear policemen more than they fear Allah. All people will not break traffic laws only when they knows there are policemen around the corners. Why do they fear policemen more than they fear Allah? They fear policemen more than they fear Allah, because according to them, policemen and not Allah have the power to take away their money, in case they do not follow traffic laws. In order to make the peoples to follow traffic laws we must ensure the peoples know that at all time in Malaysia there are always traffic policemen around the corners ,watching their driving and motorcycling behaviors with their cameras. Because of this, we have no choice but to use the part-time traffic policemen who can work at assorted hours during the day and at the same time our government must embark on large scale programme of correcting belief and mindset of our motorcars drivers and motorcyclists by using audio therapy, Pemandu Bestari. It is unbecoming for Malaysia to have motorcars drivers, who like to cut queue and motorcyclists, ignoring traffic lights when Malaysia want to be known to the world as a progressive country .
Prof Dr Nasoha Saabin
August 2012
Integrative Holistic Wellness Centre