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Justified Toll Hike?

Posted in Malaysia Personal Finance |

Ouch! The figures are finally out. I am sure the whole Klang Valley commuters are talking about it.

Toll Hike


I personally think that the hike is not justifiable for the following few reasons:

1) The condition of the traffic has not gotten any better, in fact, isn’t that the very reason these concessionaires existed in the first place- to solve the traffic issue? Maybe there are “other” not-so-obvious reasons.

2) The volume of the vehicles has been increasing. Instead of a discount, they actually demanded more.

3) There isn’t much alternatives to get around the city without passing the toll gates (for e.g. Sunway to Puchong). It’s like they are saying, “Pay up or…”

4) The quality public transport hasn’t improved to the point where the average commuters can get from Point A to Point B punctually and safely.

5) You shouldn’t compare toll prices with expressway efficiency. Being cheapest doesn’t necessarily means you have the right to increase the rate. If your expressway doesn’t solve the traffic problem, you shouldn’t even be collecting a single sen so to speak. But we Malaysians are a charitable lot.

6) What are our road taxes used for? We are already paying for insane hourly parking fees in the Klang Valley, plus the fact that the Local Council is not very forgiving either with their tickets.

That’s just a few of the questions I would raise and as a consumer, I believe it should be answered.

Some cool articles reflecting the views and opinions of others:

Memorandum on the hike (I’ve signed it!)

Plus toll hike BN’s ‘reward’ for voters

Toll rates up, petrol prices up, my blood pressure also up

You might want to read these too...

Viewing 4 Comments

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    For me it's all common sense, no one force the public to own the car or nay type of vehicle for that matter. I don't care if the toll hike to RM10 per kilometer, it does not bother me at all.

    I choose not to own a car, I sold all the vehicle I owe, I'm 32 , debt free and financially free. RM10 in my pocket a day is more then enough. I own all my property for free, I choose the type of life that I want to live without any regrets. It's all about making common sense choices.

    Everyone of us do have the right to make that choice in life, so shut up and just do the stuff you wan to do instead of just being a "tong kosong". Nobody force any one to buy their houses 50km away from the city or live 10Km from the nearest LRT station or even to use the highway for that matter. No one force anyone to get a job and work for someone else and commute 30Km daily. It's all about making the right choice.

    Sorry if you are to dump to make the wrong choice in life and blame others instead of blamming yourself because of your own stupidity. Do something about it, Change your lifestyle and make the right decision for you and stop being a cry baby bitc@#$% about whats fair and what's not. Life is not fair, suck up and live, if you do not like staying in a country like Malaysia, leave the country and stay abroad forever and never return. No one force you to stay. Grow up you cry baby.

    Zaidi Ismail
    Financially Independent
    www.azizibrahimcfp.com
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    That's a good perspective of looking at the problem. I absolutely agree with what you say- you should never spend more than you earn, period.

    My issue is not with affordability here, but rather on how these numbers are derived in pure accounting terms. It's one thing to hike the price due to inflation and economic reasons, and another for "unjustified" reasons.

    Your advice on leaving a country just because we care about the decision that is being made by the policy makers of this country makes me think about how far you are looking down the rabbit hole, or are you even peeping?

    I am in the opinion that there's no right or wrong choices, only better ones. If everyone have a choice, who doesn't want to try living like kings? You really can't condemn on choices other people make, even their choice to complaint. As for dumb choices, who are you to judge? You can only point them in a direction which might benefit more than their current status quo, and even that, it's still up to them to walk it through.

    Fairness and equity, I am not about to go into that. Whoever said life is fair? Everything that happened happens to everyone, but there are still many things that we can make a difference about. Being indifferent is not going to solve any problem and make any progress in your life.

    And as for asking people to change their lifestyle after making unjustified price hike, we know better, since our bottomlines are the one directly affected from such policies. Of course, if we are not that adaptive, I can assure you that we are no longer around and and still kicking ass.

    Well, nevertheless, I still respect your view, and thanks for visiting ;-)
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    Wows... touchy touchy... I got to say though, price hikes are somewhat common and really should be expected. Malaysian consumers I feel are just too used to always having 'subsidies'. Petrol for example should just be subjected to demand and supply. Cars and tollways for example aren't really things everyone needs to have. They are luxuries and if you can't afford it, don't use it.

    My opinion I guess is simply to recognise the fact that the government is already bending over double to help the rakyat but we're not quite doing our part as well. Road tax for example is already at a 50% discount. No one tries to car pool. People park everywhere to avoid paying for parking and etc. We do live in a city, one of the cheapest in the world at that. Can't quite be expecting costs to be similar to the towns where the most of kl'ites are from anyways.

    There will always be many sides to a story and this will probably be a good rant for a personal blog. But as meshio.com wants to appear subjective as opposed to being personal (I assume), perhaps a balanced story might be better?
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    • v
    Hi Dan,

    Thanks for the input. As I have pointed out, I don't mind paying more for the toll as long as the numbers are justified.

    i) Has the expressways that is hiking up their price improved traffic condition?

    ii) Are there an immediate alternative solution to the expressway such as a reliable public transport system?

    iii) Instead of comparing prices (quantitative) with neighbouring countries, shouldn't we be comparing the quality of the system (qualitative)?

    Hence, I am looking at it purely from the economic and consumerism point of view.

    Although it's true that the government are giving subsidies and all, we are paying through our nose for other things, for example imported cars (read: cars with better safety standards).

    And money is always a relative thing. The cost of a music CD is easily 3% of an average worker earning RM 1,500 a month in net salary.

    Hence, it's going to take a while for the average workers' wage to rise up to the level where buying original stuff is not going to hurt their bottomline too much.

    Price is a relative thing. If they'd included toll, education fees and medical fees in the "Controlled Items" list ( link:http://www.kpdnhep.gov.my/index?cpath=67_98&pub;=barg_kwln ), our inflation rates would have shot up the roof.

    Of course, as for whether a 4-wheeled (not including the spare tyre) vehicle is classified under "necessities" or "wants" in one's lifestyle, I'll leave it to the individual concerned, since different nature of occupation demands different means of commute. As for my line of work, "commuting to work" via public transport (at its current state, and for the next 3-5 years to come) would seem rather impossible.

    And yup, as Zaidi has mentioned, why did I choose a job which I must have a car? It seems that I've made a dumb choice just because I complaint about the toll hike. And that in turn, makes me unpatriotic.

    Well, as I would like to re-emphasize, I am just wondering if the whole price hike is justifiable in accounting terms.

    It's convenient to take information at face value, but sometimes, the numbers we are fed does not exactly tell us what is going on. (Remember the recent flawed NEP accounting methodology?)
 

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