Getting to Lumut, a coastal township in Perak from Kuala Lumpur on weekdays for business reason might not sound so appealing compare to the trip there for vacation, more over if it is going to be a day trip. A mere 160km from Klang Valley, it is not being too far away of a distance but then I would regard the journey of crossing the country-side just to get to Lumut, as dreadfully boring. Imagine this, once you hit the North Klang Valley Expressway, the fastest way to reach to Lumut would be via Bidor Exit and that would only just half of the entire journey with just one-third of the time. You would then bypassed small township like Bidor, Teluk Intan, and rows and rows of small villages scattered along the road as well as rows and rows of the palm oil plantation. These trunk road leading to Lumut is just a single carriageway with speed limit of 60kmph. And even if you'd fancy speeding more than allowable speed, you'd still can't verge into it as the road surface is darn bad that you would pity your car to be having to go through such bumpy ride.
So, when I had the opportunity to try out a newly built expressway, I'd definitely grab the opportunity. LATAR Hiway is a new expressway connecting Gombak in Klang Valley to Kuala Selangor and as for me, I could easily tapped the route into Guthrie Expressway which lead to Subang. People earlier comments reported as; you would enjoy a better, scenic view travelling via coastal road from Lumut to Kuala Selangor compare to country-side view of Lumut-Bidor. Anyway, upon reaching home, my conclusion would be; I'd still have to choose Bidor-Lumut if time is of essence, but given the comparison of past experiences, time is always an important essence to me. So even, how dreaded I would feel driving through the Bidor-Lumut's route, it is still bearable in comparison to Kuala Selangor-Lumut, simply for these facts:
1. Traffic flow is unpredicted. I was driving along the 2 to 4pm time frame with a maximum speed limit of 90kmph but I rarely managed to go beyond 80kmph
2. Even the road is wide enough, a dual-carriageway, the slow-coaches would always remain at the fastest lane so there's no way you could pass by them
