… not always, not if you don’t feel like it, and almost definitely not if you’re a motor cyclist in Ipoh. When you approach an amber light as I did this morning on my way to the supermarket, you should check your rear-view mirror to make sure you won’t get bashed by the car behind you if you decide to stop. I stopped because there wasn’t a car directly behind me but the motorcycles to my left didn’t hesitate – they went through the red light at great speed – and clearly never had any intention of stopping. When the light turned green for me, I took a long pause because four cars came through the intersection after their light had turned red and mine had turned green. The photo above is of a warning sign (‘berhenti’ means ‘stop’ in Malay) at our local petrol station. It clearly has absolutely no effect (and is nicely ungrammatical as well!) I made it to the supermarket and back unscathed as you know because you’re reading this post.