Surviving the Ringgit Crossing

With the long weekend looming and the near 3X exchange rate – northern drive getaways are greatly tempting to test out those Supreme money guns.

Driving up North gives you a chance to enjoy open stretches on the highway with the Waze community accurately alerts you on hiding TPs, abundance of street food brimming with real “wok hei” that is nearly unheard of at our Kofus, similar cultures and demographics for you to blend in without being scammed as a foreigner and plenty of green and acres of plantations to fight myopia. There’s always a reason to head to Malaysia as a holiday destination – beaches, resorts, hotels, sleepy towns, café hopping, go karting, casino, cooler highlands and much more.

Everything seems better on the other side – except for the dreaded crossing. Despite having 2 checkpoints, checkpoint traffic can get pretty insane during peak hours, holiday periods and sometimes sneak up on you for no anticipated reason. Potentially claustrophobia inducing hours of snail-ing through idling exhausts, weakening air conditioning and reception-free zones can be debilitating. Added driver fatigue, bladder anxieties, boredom, insufficient water can add up and quickly ruin the holidaying mood. Many have sworn off driving into Malaysia after having experienced such discomfort and would rather fly or wait for the KL high speed rail to be built.

Here are some tips to survive the checkpoint traffic without losing it so bad that your inner Mas Selamat rather have you swim across.

Most people think that as long as they leave early and avoid peak hours, they will be able to avoid traffic. Live traffic monitoring websites sometimes make little sense – since they are often riddled with downed cameras or are barely useful for you to judge when to leave the house. Waking up your annoyed kids in the wee hours and getting them to bathe and prepare like a normal school day isn’t a joyful holiday start. Some even plan for breakfast in JB and end up spending hours hangry and annoyed in traffic they tried to avoid.

Instead, make use of the power of data - what you need is to be able to plan your trip well in advance. Apps like Waze have been collecting traffic data over the years and are able to provide an estimate of traffic conditions in your route for specific times in future. Sometimes the traffic at the checkpoint may be lower at 8am than at 5am as more people anticipate the former to be peak hour. More officers may have turned up for work, have taken over shifts and are able to process immigration faster – which are useful anomalies to exploit. Plan around a timeslot or a series of timeslots that hint lower traffic and work your holidays around them. After all, most hotel check-in timings can be between 2-4pm.

Some cars are predisposed to overheating and premature component failure and the chances of them popping up increase tremendously when moving in slow moving traffic. What’s worse than having to survive jams is having to survive a car that’s about to break down in traffic. Other cars may cause certain inconveniences when made to wait in line – especially one that is almost fully loaded with family and gear.

One of the most common failures during checkpoint crossing is the air-conditioning. With the lack of moving air to cool the radiator and engine, warm air starts to find its way into the cabin and lead to much unwanted discomfort. Most cars are also designed to prevent the engine from overheating and may cut off the air con compressor automatically to reduce the load on the engine. Sometimes a faulty temperature sensor may incorrectly cause the same even when it is cooler.

It is easy to understand car servicing – oil change, general maintenance and so on. Air-con servicing however is not as widely understood. Spend some time reading up on air con servicing, air-con compressor fluids and ways to keep car air-con health in good condition. With that knowledge, approach your trusted car mechanic or an air con servicing specialist to ensure that all systems are good to go before your trips. The additional knowledge can help you prevent getting bombed by unnecessary air-con services and do only what is necessary to keep your vehicle in good form.

While this is a no brainer, there are moments when you might find yourself with absolutely no tissues in the car or the Immigrations toilets. Worse, when you really need to take a leak and stuck in the middle of traffic.

Portable pee bottles are a thing - barely talked about and often ignored. These provide great relief not just to children stuck without a toilet in sight, but also in instances even for incontinental adults. They are relatively cheap to buy and available online on sites such as Lazada.sg. It would be good to invest in some and just stash it on the side door pockets of your car for emergencies. The last thing you need to remember in a great holiday is a toilet crisis. You probably may never use it to avoid embarrassing yourself, but knowing they are within reach greatly eases anxiety.

Be it touch n go or cashcard, it is good to have a topped-up card for speedier movement through gantries. While the Touch & Go card is not available for sale in Singapore, you could buy one at the Malaysian checkpoint, or better still search for online sellers through Carousell who sell their touch n go cards and even Smart Tags (in-vehicle unit equivalent).

Touch N Go launched the Touch N Go app recently to top up your touch and go cards without having to go to a physical reload location. While the system is still being ironed out for bugs and issues, in future this may be able to work with RFID enabled mobile phones to replace Touch n Go cards.

Overall with proper advanced planning, packing necessities and keeping your car in good condition, crossing over to Malaysia can be a breeze and lets you focus on the more fun things instead of having to brave Jams and clog single lanes.

Credits: