Miri Resort City.com | MiriCity.my - Automotive

A Miri Math Quiz

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:45:57 +0800

Math quiz: Parking coupons in Miri are supposed to cost RM4.25. They take RM5 and give you back RM0.70. What happened to the RM0.05?

The person in the parking booth claims they do not have 5 cents left (this early in the morning at 9am!)

So what do they do? Don't return the 5 cents, of course. Well of course to make excuses for laziness for not preparing enough 5 cent coins. We all know that if theyare to 'fix' this problem they will probably round the price up to RM4.30 or RM4.50, not issue more 5 cent coin changes.

Pan Borneo Highway - "Killer Highway" & Recent Express Bus Accidents

Mon, 7 Mar 2011 11:19:05 +0800

The 'highway', a route connecting Bintulu & Miri in northern Sarawak, has always been known as a very accident-prone and a hotbed for crime and carjackings, now is also becoming a hotbed for express bus accidents.

Three serious express bus accidents occured in the past 5 months, claimed five lives, one including a six-month pregnant victim. In the latest accident, foreign tourists were also involved.

The list of express bus accidents :

- On March 4th, an express bus ferrying 19 people turned-turtle at the Pan Borneo Highway. It is fortunately that everyone, including some foreign tourists survived.

- On Jan 28, and express bus was involved in a head-on collision with a lorry,killing an Indian national and a pregnant woman.

- On Nov 21 last year, three people were killed and eight others injured when the express bus they were traveling in, collided head-on with a 38-tonne lorry.

It is not known what the causes were in these accidents. But the 'highway' is notorious for its deadly pot-holes, narrow roads and a lack of street lighting and effective reflectors for motoring individuals and other traffic, lack of maintenance and poor safety barriers.

Source

Parking Along Bendahara Road is Being Removed

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 09:54:04 +0800

Parking along Bendahara road is being removed to make way for road widening. If you're turning into town from Melayu Road / Kingsway Road along China Street, there will be absolutely no parking for you, until you turn left along Cassia Road, turn into Anatto Street, make a turn into Raja Road adjacent to China Street, to find a parking space. Normally you'd find a spot along Bendahara, but this isn't possible now.

View Larger Map

Or you could park in the new parking area along the riverside just off Bendahara Road (as designated in these signs), which is quite a distance away.

As can also be seen in the pictures, the removal of the parking lines will only make people park in their own invisible parking spots. This road will be packed, parking or not. Is this a good idea?

28th June 2009 - Move to curb drink-driving in Sarawak

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:44:18 +0800

Move to curb drink-driving in Sarawak

MIRI: Sarawak police will step up enforcement on the streets and highways throughout the state to deter alcohol abuse among motorists.

The police force in every town in the state’s 12 divisions and in the cities of Miri and Kuching will be equipped with breath-analysers and screening devices to detect motorists who are drunk or who have high level of blood alcohol.

“Reckless driving caused by drunkenness is very high. We must curb alcohol abuse.

More at Source

My take:

Come on! Why only now? We all know drinking & driving around these parts are insanely high, especially during festive seasons. I've noticed this since I started driving many years ago. And even then, news of accidents involving drunk drivers go way back to when I was a child. It's one reason I don't stay out late at nights on these occasions - we've seen too many incidents regarding drunk drivers killing innocent drivers, and they seemingly getting away with it.

The big question is, will you really take action or it's all just talk?

21st June 2009 - Bruneians Owe Miri Council RM16,000 In Parking Compound

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:03:36 +0800

Bruneians Owe Miri Council RM16,000 In Parking Compound

Some 445 Brunei-registered vehicle owners have owed the Miri City Council RM16,000 in outstanding parking compound since 2002. This was highlighted by Miri's Mayor Lawrence Lai, the Borneo Post reported yesterday.

For the convenience of motorists from Brunei, the council has set up counters at its multi-storey car park during weekends and the public holidays. The counter will open from Sam to 4pm.

Errant motorists owe Miri City Council RM4.4 million in outstanding parking compound in that period of time. The outstanding amount involved 109,44 Malaysian registered vehicles and 698 from other foreign registered vehicles owe RM24,000 in outstanding compound.

Lai thus urged motorists to pay their outstanding compound to the council as parking fees and assessment rates were among the main contributors to the council's revenue. "The council is giving a three-month grace starting May I with a 50 per cent discount to encourage defaulters to pay up," he said.

However, the response has been poor with only RM129,000 in outstanding compound collected in May, he stated, adding that as a last resort the council might take legal action against the defaulters after the expiry of this grace period.

A penalty of RM300 would be imposed on motorists after their cases are brought to court, he stated.

Full news here

My take:

I'm not at all surprised. The coupon-ticketing system has too much discrepancies. If you park properly and mis-scratch the date or time or just made some sort of honest mistake, you get a fine, you have to pay the full fine of RM15! Add to the cost of the coupon with the mistake that would be about RM15.40. If a person did NOT put a coupon, he pays a fine with gross amount of about RM15.

That's 0.40 cents LESS than the person that made an honest mistake!!!!

Sure, you can go to have this disputed, but you'd have to head over to the Council building for this, and when you're there, you have to pay for another parking there! And assuming you DON'T make a mistake there, you have to dispute with the complaints counter, which if they say they can't do anything about it, then you'd have to take it to whoever is in charge of that. Assuming they waive the fine, there's all this cost incurred to your time. It's THAT frustrating. So if you're from across the border it's understandable why you'd just resort to hopping across the border back home instead of having to deal with all these stupid little time-consuming things like us poor locals have to.

However, those who park in yellow lines, or park their cars like an idiot (parking in 2 spots, or even 3, double parking, or improperly - see picture ) will get away with it.

So - tough luck. Perhaps the council should think about some more effective way of promoting things like this.

Photo of the Day

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:43:39 +0800

Truck breaks down in the middle of the city, at the worse possible spot: the worse U-Turn in the Whole World.

Flash Floods in Miri

Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:18:22 +0800

Sudden downpour of torrential rain for just over an hour causes flash floods around Miri town today at noon 3rd of February, 2009.

The higher-than-usual amount of precipitation over the past month also caused many landslides, potholes and road breakages, flooding and bridge collapses around Miri, taxing rescue workers and engineers and endangering lives.

30th December 2008 - "Mall Outing Turns To Terror In Miri"

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:35:02 +0800

Miri - Three Bruneians who went shopping in Miri last weekend will think twice about going down south again, after becoming victims of an alleged beating outside one of the malls there.

According to a relative, the man and two women were just coming out of their parking spot, when a car came speeding out of nowhere and hit their vehicle. When they came out to confront the driver of the other vehicle and to negotiate what to do next, the four men became violent.

One of the four men went back into their vehicle and rammed their car again twice.

One of the women went into the car and started to honk the horn to attract attention for assistance from passers-by but was dragged out of the car by one of the four men. The Bruneian man was beaten up and the two women were dragged and slapped.

The three were able to run into their car and immediately rushed to the nearest police station to lodge a report.

As a security precaution, the three Bruneians were then escorted back by the police all the way to the Malaysian Immigration post on their way home.

[ Source ]

My take: Road rage? Sooner or later we need to look into this seriously, and I wonder if police are trained to recognize and react accordingly to these kinds of possibilities.

Car theft on the rise.

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:05:51 +0800

About 6-8 cars were reported missing last night alone (10th June 2008). Not sure of the exact figures but it was around that.

My parents' car was also stolen.

In fact, we had sort of expected this to occur - this says a lot about the crime problems in Miri. It's not that we think it 'only happens to someone else' but we expected it to occur. Th problem is just 'when'?

Few days back, a friend's friend's Perdana was also stolen, but he was lucky as the police managed to spot it and get it back. It's interesting to know how they stole the cars - they simply drilled through the key hole, open the door and - if the car had a gear shift lock - using a hammer or heavy object, hit it hard enough so the lock mechanism breaks, but makes it drivable.

Steering locks are a deterrent but if they really wanted the car they'd be able to get past it anyhow (looking at the above example, a gearshift lock didn't work).

5th June, 2008 - Fuel price hikes causes massive jams at petrol stations

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 09:51:58 +0800

Petrol will be RM2.70 a litre at midnight tonight The new price of petrol is RM2.70 per litre beginning midnight tonight, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced just a moment ago. The 78 sen hike or 40 per cent increase is still below the antiticpated RM4 per litre price projected earlier and among the cheapest in Asia.

Diesel prices increased by RM1 per liter, and petrol by RM0.78. It sucks to be a diesel owner now.

Oh by the way - transportation vehicles usually run on diesel. So that means, we shall await the effects of the huge jump in diesel prices to be reflected in the prices of goods. Will this be the price hike 'tsunami' everyone's been anticipating?

The Morning Jam

Wed, 21 May 2008 14:36:45 +0800

Flyover bridge stress-testing. How many cars can you put on top of it?

The jam along the stretch of road leading to Bintang. (Road ahead is clear because it turns left into town. Jam occurs for those who want to go straight.)

These pictures are from this morning's traffic jam over the flyover bridge as a result of the the incredibly stupid badly planned roadworks at the junction I blogged about the few days before.

It also slowed traffic to a crawl on the flyover that was supposed to ease the traffic flow along this road. (see second pic)

P.S. Also note that 'lovely morning mist'. Ahhh, the fresh scent of open burning.

Anti-theft device

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:58:16 +0800

High-tech vehicular anti-theft device & immobilizer.

Patriotic Van

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 16:17:44 +0800

Some people in Miri choose to show their patriotic flair more than others, and this is one way;

Miri's first flyover.

Mon, 8 Oct 2007 00:57:29 +0800

Listen to ANY blog

Talkr: Letting blogs speak for themselves.

Listen to this article

I took a video while driving over Miri's first flyover - opened just a few days ago.

My camera is attached to a tripod mounted on my car - so rest assured I wasn't holding onto thre camera while driving.

>My observations:

1. There's absolutely no margin for error. You skid, you fly. A car breaks down, half of the flyover is blocked. A bad accident occurs the bridge is pretty much out. There's no emergency lanes and sufficient space to swerve. That's pretty much it. You can see all this in the video.

2. Headed toward Pujut, there was a rather unsettling bump coming down on the turn. Coincidentially (or maybe not) it was at a high speed turn coming off. You can also notice this in the video I uploaded.

3. Traffic joining after coming down from the flyover is excruciatingly slow due to the nature of that corner. When going down, it is advisable to keep right unless you also go slow, otherwise you might rear-end some car that decides to swerve into your lane from there.

4. People drive fast on it! Notice the car ahead of me accelerating ahead. It may not look like it, but I was going near the limit - 80kph. The car ahead me must've gone much faster - 120kph at least.

This is the video I took this (since it's past midnight, yesterday) evening. Notice that right from the start you can already see a car swerve onto the flyover at the last minute probably the driver wasn't aware of it. To use the flyover, keep to the right 2 lanes as you head straight down to Pujut. The two left lanes are to go to do your shopping at Boulevard.

Otherwise, it's a pretty good feeling because there will no longer be any jams along that area. Until you reach the other roundabout, that is.

Hey, Stupid. Park properly.

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:33:50 +0800

Here's an example of a motorcyclist parking taking up a CAR parking space, forcing the car behind it to park with its rear end sticking out in a crowded parking zone.

Next time, I won't be so kind as to blank out the plate number.

See a similar example.