An admission of failure

If nothing else, this is as much an open admission that the ban on heavy vehicles using the Penang Bridge at peak hours - two hours in the mornings and two more hours in the afternoons - is not working well. The ban is not producing the desired effect.

Congestion sets in every morning immediately after paying the bridge toll when multiple lanes all converge into two lanes at the start of the bridge. Moreover, the second toll plaza building is just a GREAT deception. Where do you think traffic flow to after paying the toll? A miraculous short-cut to the bridge? No! Drivers that use this plaza find that it is a double whammy. The traffic flow immediately narrows into two lanes - and you are competing with lorries here - which then flow join into the main bottleneck. Such a sheer waste of money to construct it. The bottleneck area is what motorists have to endure most mornings and afternoons.

Moreover, the situation is never lightened as immediately at 8.30am, all the lorries, trailers and other heavy vehicles are let loose on the bridge. I'm alarmed when I see lorry drivers trying to outdo one another by overtaking the slower ones. When two heavy vehicles race side by side on the two available lanes, one can only hope that they will not collide and block off the bridge totally. It would be a disaster.