Whether trading cars for motorcycles, switching to public transport, or simply walking to work, Malaysians are tackling the massive fuel price hike in different ways.

They have settled down to fuel-saving measures after a spurt of protests in the national capital and some other cities saw thousands of people converge on the streets.

As per an announcement by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on June 4, gasoline pump prices jumped 41 per cent overnight and diesel prices surged a stunning 67 per cent.

This has become a major issue in Malaysia — a prosperous tiger economy with burgeoning farm and factory production. Opposition political parties did their share of protesting too as the government braced to meet the economic challenge the fuel price hike posed.

It compensated the commuters in the form of fuel subsidy to the tune of $900,000. Trips and travel schedules of ministers have been curtailed. People have been asked to follow a simple life, like taking up vegetarianism, to meet the economic challenge.

The crime chart has since shown that car thieves have turned to stealing petrol. For a brief period, the authorities ran a separate rate for cars with ‘foreign’ license plates, mostly from neighbouring Singapore and Thailand, partly to comfort the local sentiments.

"Going public" is how The Star on Sunday headlined a survey that speaks of many people walking to work or taking the public transport.

Women are switching over from cars to riding scooters. Sales of motorcycle dealers have improved by almost 25 per cent with demand now outstripping supply.

Many, including white-collared workers, are on the waiting list of people wanting to buy motorcycles.

M. Dharmalingam, 61, who runs a small business in Kuala Lumpur, said that since parking charges have gone up, he uses public transport, saving an estimated $6.

Dharmalingam is planning to buy a monthly pass for public transport, which costs $31.18. The number of vehicles on the roads has also come down drastically.

Cardiologist Ramesh Singh Veriah finds that he now takes just 10 minutes to drive the five kilometres from his home in Bangsar to his workplace at the University Malaya Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur, which used to take around 30 minutes.

Kuala Lumpur City Hall recorded a drop of almost 12,000 cars entering the city daily every week after the fuel price hike. A bus company in Putrajaya has recorded a 10 per cent increase in the number of passengers.

Daily traffic volume on the busy and often gridlocked Penang Bridge has dropped by seven per cent from the previous daily volume of 67,000 vehicles, the newspaper survey said.