Study says driving in Malaysia stressful

 

Malaysia has been ranked the eighth most stressful country to drive in, with a score of 72 out of 100. - Bernama pic

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has been ranked the eighth most stressful country to drive in, with a score of 72 out of 100.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) topped the list of "the world's most and least stressful countries to drive in" with a score of 88, followed by Bulgaria (80), Turkey (78), Italy (76), Hong Kong (76), Czech Republic (74), and Belgium (72).

The ranking was published by Confused.com, a UK based financial services comparison platform specialising in comparison of insurance and financial services.

From road quality and congestion levels to the number of speed cameras and accidents on the roads, Confused.com analysed 48 countries across a range of different factors.

Each nation was then given an overall weighted score out of 100 to reveal which are the most stressful to drive in.

Ranking ninth after Malaysia is Brazil with a score of 71, followed by Argentina (71), Canada (70), Colombia (69), the Philippines (68), Poland (67), Romania (65), Chile (64), Singapore (63), United Kingdom (61), Netherlands (61), and Morocco (57).

Malaysia scored particularly badly for accidents on the road - fatal accidents per 100,000 population stood at 22.93, which is significantly higher than its neighbouring countries - Singapore (2.51) and the Philippines (9.69).

Malaysia also scored highly for the number of cars on the road with 91.5 per km of road, while the quality of road infrastructure scored 72.4 of 100 and one-speed camera every km of the road at 995.88).

Ranking in positions between 21 and 49 were countries including India, China and New Zealand.

Israel came in 21st place with a score of 57, Germany (57), India (56), Greece (54), China (54), Zimbabwe (53), Thailand (52), Switzerland (52), Austria (46), New Zealand (46), Mexico (44), South Africa (44), Portugal (43), Iran (43), France (43), Peru (42), Slovenia (40), Norway (39), Ireland (39), Slovakia (36), Hungary (35), Sweden (33), United States (30), Australia (29), Saudi Arabia (29), Spain (28), Japan (28), Finland (27) and Denmark (27).

Denmark, Japan and Finland ranked as the three least stressful countries to drive in, each with a score under 28 out of 100. Each country scored particularly low for fatal accidents, with each of the three countries reporting under four accidents per 100,000 population.

Europe dominated the top 10 least stressful countries to drive in, with nine countries from the continent all scoring less than 40/100 for stressful driving factors.

The top 10 countries with the most speed cameras were Hong Kong, UAE, Singapore, Turkey, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Austria and Bulgaria.

While the top 10 nations with the worst quality roads were Zimbabwe, Romania, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bulgaria, Argentina, Philippines, Iran and the Czech Republic.

The top 10 countries with the most fatal accidents per population were the UAE, India, Chile, Hong Kong, Turkey, Canada, China, Netherlands, Thailand, and South Africa.

Confused.com used a number of different sources, from the World Health Organisation to the World Economic Forum, to rank countries for four different factors: road quality, number of speed cameras, fatal accidents per country population, plus the number of cars per KM of road, to reveal the countries where it is most stressful to drive.

Allowing each country to have a score out of 100 for each factor, researchers then calculated an average score out of 100, and used this score to rank the countries from most to least stressful to drive in. - NST