Free toll ride during Raya Celebration.

It has been almost six days of Raya's celebration.

Recently, the government had put their initiative to encourage the road users to travel using the highways. The East Coast Expressway can drive toll free from September 18 to September 24 from midnight to 5am. According to this report, the toll-free hours are applicable to all classes of vehicles, including commercial vehicle. Users can saved up to RM29 in toll for a one-way trip using the East Coast Expressway.

I am impressed with this initiative by the government to help the citizen to reduce the toll money as people especially the Muslims had spent lot of money for the Raya celebration. People who are travelling less hour and less kilometer might not care about this as they only spent lesser money on toll compared to the people who are travelling far from their homes to their hometown like from south to north.

However, during that period of time which is from midnight to 5 am, there are only few road users as it is not the best time to travel. The user usually travel during day time as during the night time it is dark and it has lots of obstacle to travel. Besides, during that period of time, it usually rain and it makes the journey to become more difficult. Another factor that discourage the road user to travel at night is the sleepy factor. Besides, this period is reported to have a high accidents rate due to drivers fatigues, drowsiness and other factors as well.

So, despite of this initiative, the government may also provide another way such as giving discounts of toll rates during the peak hours.

In conclusion, I think the government had put their initiative to help the citizens during this festive season but there are more to improve as toll free rides during midnight to 5 am has it pros and cons. So, the government should done their initiatives well by taking other matters as well before they continue with their project especially at the festive season.

Not to forget, Happy Eid everyone!

I edited this post on 12/10/2009 because only my nickname displayed. It was posted on 24 September 2009.