MALAYSIAN motorists are in a great rush to top the world's worst drivers league table.   Last year, our drivers were the fifth worst, an online survey concluded.

Envious of Thailand perched on the first rung of the unenviable ladder, our drivers are hurrying to displace it.

What a wrong rung changer our drivers have become. Bad driving habits are fast becoming a part of Malaysian road culture.

So don't go wondering why there is road carnage here. Every year, police issue hundreds of thousands of summonses for all manner of traffic violations.

The three most common are speeding, obstructing traffic and running the red light, in that order.

In just a few days last week, the police collected RM4 million in traffic summonses.

And that, too, at up to 60 per cent discount. Of this, obstructing traffic earned our Treasury the most. At this rate, our national debt of RM1.3 trillion will be paid off sooner than Putrajaya had planned.

It is good that the police are turning the capital city into a "fine" city. Other cities must follow Kuala Lumpur's lead.   

Traffic obstruction is a common menace in Malaysian cities, especially  in Kuala Lumpur.

If it causes traffic congestion in the city, it is far worse in residential areas.

Any open space is turned into parking spots, making access impossible for emergency services. Such vehicles must be towed away, released only with the owners paying hefty fines.

But the problem is that towing away offending vehicles is an occasional affair.

In the 11 months of the year, there were only five such operations in Kuala Lumpur, the latest one being on Sunday when seven vehicles were towed away.

For the second most common traffic offence, five operations aren't enough. More towing is the way to go, with suspension of the driving licence of repeat offenders' as an added deterrent. 

Malaysian motorists are one recalcitrant lot. This in itself is an argument for punishing penalties.

Discounted summonses are certainly not one of them. To road safety experts, traffic summonses that come discounted unintentionally undermine the seriousness of traffic violations but also encourage risky road behaviours.

We agree. Risky road behaviours must be made expensive, not cheap. We are glad the police are planning to haul red light runners straight to court instead of fining them.

We suggest such harsher punishment be extended to all traffic violations.

Hauling offenders to court instead of fining them is an idea whose time has come.

This doesn't mean that Malaysia can make its bad drivers into good ones simply by issuing fines.

Fines — hefty though they may be — are only good up to a point. They don't lead to long-term behavioural change. Education and training in road safety do.

So will awareness of the consequences of disobeying traffic rules. But this must start early as part of the school curriculum for road safety behaviour to become part of our second nature. 

As this Leader goes to press, road accidents on Malaysian roads claim one life every 80 minutes.

Accidents don't happen; they are caused. Most of the time, the cause is right behind the wheels.