This comes amid a debate on the legality of motorcyclists using the emergency lane. Recent reports have also highlighted cases of motorcyclists damaging side windows of cars using these lanes.

Road safety consultant Karen Goonting said Malaysia was actually the first country to build motorcycle lanes in the 1970s with the construction of the one along the Federal Highway.

“Subsequent studies showed that the motorcycle lanes reduced motorcyclist deaths on the highway by 32-39 per cent.”

However, Karen said there were issues with motorcycle lanes in Malaysia as constructing them would not guarantee they would be used.

She said some of these issues included the massive construction cost, the lanes not being built properly, flash floods, improper installation of gratings to cover drains, the threat of being robbed and some being longer than normal car lanes.

Karen said a cheaper and short-term solution would be partitioning highway lanes to turn them into a makeshift motorcycle lane.

Recently, the debate over the right to use the emergency lane was sparked after a video surfaced of “vigilante” motorcyclists ramming the side mirrors of cars misusing the emergency lane.

However, police took a dim view of this, with New Straits Times Online quoting Kuala Lumpur Traffic Police Chief Mohd Nadzri Hussain as saying the motorcyclists were committing an offence by damaging the side mirrors. He also said the motorcyclists were misusing the emergency lane themselves.

This then led to an outcry by some quarters that motorcyclists have no other choice but to use emergency lanes on some highways due to a lack of motorcycle lanes.