Because usually their house are smaller than Malaysia, second because they put priority to backyard. Often they would rather have bigger backyard than driveway, which we rarely see any significantly sized backyard in Malaysia. In term of crime, its just the same, sometime its even scarier, bcause there are many cases of people just trying to open ur door incase u forgot to lock your door, and hence why in western countries their front door often have three layers of locks. In fact, theres this one time, i intentionally leave my door unlock because im planning to go out anyway, and in such short time, i found a huge white guy in my kitchen, such crazy world.

If u asked me, i'd rather have front gate than not having one