Advanced nations just like the UK normally expertise a decline in visitors crashes over time. Malaysia, nonetheless, appears to defy the conference.
Police figures present there have been a complete of 6,433 deaths on the road final 12 months, the very best quantity ever reported, whereas the 598,635 crashes registered broke a brand new document.
Did you occur to see a viral video of a JPJ driving take a look at, the place a lady had to contact and name out the names of the components of a automotive such because the headlights and back lights?
I assumed it was a pretend video however upon checking, it was confirmed to be real.
If that is the type of driving take a look at that has been mandated by the road transport division, then can it’s any surprise why visitors fatalities are rising?
The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) has emphasised that human error is a big contributing issue to visitors fatalities in Malaysia, as has the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the US.
The long-term answer is to improve the driving take a look at requirements to make sure that drivers are adequately educated and examined on important driving abilities and information.
JPJ had some years in the past introduced some plans about conducting driving exams in a digital surroundings. Could the viral video of the lady doing her tragic-comic driving take a look at be a travesty of that driving simulator testing beforehand talked about?
But which politician is keen to be unpopular and speak about making driving exams an actual driving take a look at, particularly in these occasions the place, seemingly, the tail wags the canine?
Speaking of populism, the federal government has made a logical choice to allocate its RM37 million toll subsidy to the 2 days earlier than Hari Raya. This will stretch out the outbound visitors peak to three days, from Sunday till Tuesday midnight.
There are many different key elements that Malaysia’s residents, civil service, company and different entities can sort out to reduce visitors fatalities.
Minimising the usage of handphones whereas driving may instantly reduce the variety of visitors crashes.
Distracted driving, rushing, impaired driving (similar to driving inebriated or medicine), aggressive driving, fatigue, and normal failure to obey visitors legal guidelines are the fast causes of road deaths.
We can make extra efforts at inculcating a safety-first perspective. Some corporations within the safety-first oil and fuel trade particularly prohibit their workers from texting whereas driving.
Shell Malaysia was one of many first to implement this ban on its workers as a part of its occupational security and well being pointers.
Observing how there are specific bus drivers who can be noticed utilizing their handphones whereas driving till at the moment, I’m wondering if the land public transport company (APAD) and specific bus corporations can work nearer collectively and do extra to defend passenger security.
And how about e-hailing platforms like Grab, Lalamove, and Foodpanda bettering the security of their e-hailing motorcyclists via utilizing smartphone know-how to detect distracted using?
Are the police accumulating knowledge on the usage of handphones by e-hailing motorcyclists, like by catching them?
No, they don’t seem to be as a result of it’s apparent that these e-motorcyclists want their smartphones to navigate and discover the addresses. And the Malaysian police are compassionate, so that you can’t solely blame them.
Perhaps Socso, the General Insurance Association of Malaysia (PIAM) and e-hailing platform homeowners can pool funds to equip e-hailing riders with a Bluetooth-equipped headphone helmet.
With this connectivity to Waze or Google Maps navigation software program, the riders can hear to prompts and not be distracted by trying on the cellphone. They ought to observe the visitors and trip defensively.
In that situation, the police will discover the ethical energy to implement the regulation on distracted using and folks gained’t complain that police will not be imposing the regulation on e-hailing riders.
Since we see that nearly 65% of the visitors fatalities are motorcyclists and the youth, then the related ministries ought to organise their stakeholders like colleges, corporations with many workers, group organisations, social media retailers together with key opinion leaders to disseminate road security messages successfully.
Are we doing sufficient to put money into visitors calming measures and upgrading high-risk road sections?
Prominently positioned velocity cameras are very helpful to persuade road customers to observe the velocity restrict.
One of the theories in direction of decreasing visitors fatalities is about utilizing public transport. The transport ministry is beneficiant with allowing extra specific bus providers throughout peak holidays just like the approaching Hari Raya Puasa.
But why can’t one other authorities entity, KTM, double or triple the providers to the north throughout peak seasons?
The motion plan for road security is for employers to play an even bigger position to complement authorities efforts.
“This is as a result of there may be extra of a bond between employers and workers than nameless authorities businesses,” says Professor Kulanthayan KC Mani, head of Universiti Putra Malaysia’s division of group well being and the chair of a worldwide alliance of road security NGOs.
What ought to employers intention for relating to a road security tradition of their surroundings?
The author can be contacted at [email protected]
The views expressed are these of the author and do not essentially replicate these of eNM.
