Driving in Penang...

... is a total bitch. We are selfish, inconsiderate, retarded drivers. Most of us only got our licenses by giving coffee money anyhow. So here's a tip when driving on the island's only highway. Keep left. It gets you to point B faster. Let me explain in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Usage of a three-lane highway

As you can see, the right-most lane ought to be the fast lane, but in Penang, it tends to be the slowest. This is because everyone wants to go fast. Everyone thinks that they're going fast, from beat-up old rust sacks to 60-wheel timber trucks. They drive at 60 km/h and their adrenaline's a-pumping, their hearts a-racing. Oftentimes, I see one tiny little Kancil doing 60 km/h on the fast lane, with a loooooong almighty long line of cars following (seemingly) patiently behind. This lane is also for cars who want to overtake the really slow cars moving on the middle lane. However, they overtake by doing 2.5 km/h faster than the middle-lane cars. Not very efficient.

The middle lane is arguably the slowest. The mentality of drivers doing the middle lane is that they're going moderately fast. I mean, 40 km/h on a highway IS moderately fast, innit? They sneer at the ones going really slow on the left-most lane, and they sneer at the ones going really fast (remember, 60 km/h) on the right-most lane, thinking they're such speed demons they'll crash and burn someday. The middle lane however is the most efficient when you are weaving in and out of traffic to overtake retardedly slow drivers. Middle-lane drivers are at least constant, you can cut between them with a space of less than two meters and rest assured, there will still be enough space for you to do that trick.

Then there's the left-most lane, which is the fastest. This is because nobody likes to think they're moving slowly, and the left-most lane is after all the slow lane. Therefore, nobody uses it, except for considerate garbage truckers, good bus drivers, and occasionally the old granny drivers. This is by far the best lane to drive on, because even if you do encounter those really slow cars, you can still cut to the middle lane (remember, middle-lane drivers although slow are constant drivers) and then cut back.