Motorcycle taxi services, such as Dego Ride, is now banned because of the high number of road fatalities involving motorcyclists. It was said that more than 60 per cent, or more than 4,000, of annual road fatalities were motorcycle-related.
Presumably, by the same logic, motorcycles should be banned, too, and thousands of lives could be saved.
This, and the argument used to ban Dego Ride, is of course a flawed conclusion, even when the logical deduction process proves to be correct.
In a way, this is less of a treatise on why Dego Ride should be banned or allowed to operate. It is the inconsistency of decision-making that singled out the motor taxis. One could not be faulted for suggesting discrimination based on the number of wheels the vehicles have.
Following the government’s embrace of the ride-hailing services such as Grab and Uber, I was rather surprised that the motor taxi service was banned. But, yet again, I should not be.
Let me explain this contradiction. It is the unfamiliarity of the unknown. I believe most of those who talk of banning the service were likely not to have been on a bike, or if they had, it had been a long while ago. I am not sure if they had tried Dego Ride, either.
They talk about safety of the passengers, understandably, because one is more vulnerable on a motorcycle than in a car. Yet, millions of people ride, and are pillion riders, on motorcycles. We could have inadvertently tarred the whole mode of transportation by associating it with death, to put it not so mildly.
The government is undertaking a public transportation transformation programme with the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), Light Rain Transit (LRT) and the monorail. Such a massive effort cannot be exclusive of all other efforts. The feeder buses, taxis and taxi lanes, pedestrian walkways and even ride-hailing services should figure in the grand scheme of things.
I would think that innovative ideas, such as motorcycle taxis, should also be encouraged as part of the total urban transportation solution. After all, motor taxis do apply in some neighbouring countries, and they, too, care about road safety.
Of course, road fatalities involving motorcyclists is a serious issue, thus the need for us to find out why — recklessness or illegal racing or road design or inadequate bike lanes, etc? We may be missing the woods for the trees if we think banning Dego Ride would curb road deaths.
I believe the hallmark of a great society is to figure out how to solve such a dire problem. It is forecast that by 2020, we would have more than 10,000 road deaths a year. If road accident is a disease, it would be an epidemic.
A better statistic to quote, presumably, would be that in the few months that Dego Ride was in operation, how many accidents or fatalities have been attributed to the service? The authorities should have spoken to passengers and observed these bikers in operation, too.
I personally believe that there is a place for a Dego Ride-like service. The guys behind Dego Ride must have noted the needs of people who would want to pay less — RM2.50 for a 3km journey — and willing to sacrifice some comfort to be on a motorbike.
Perhaps it is not as glamorous or popular as car ride-hailing services like Grab or Uber, where investors, including our public institutions, are investing hundreds of millions of ringgit in.
I have never taken Dego Ride, but I have taken similar motorcycle services abroad and found that even at a slow, safe speed, we would be whizzing past cars caught in gridlock.
It was reported that under the Road Transport Act, motorcycles could not be used for commercial purposes. Well, if that is the basis of the ban, I can understand that. But, the law can be changed, presumably.
After all, it was not possible previously to use private cars for commercial purposes, and that drivers must have public service vehicle (PSV) licences for that purpose. This is now not needed for Grab or Uber it seems.
Dego Ride has been able to tap into the potential of urban youth, predominantly. While they can’t afford to buy cars to be Uber or Grab drivers, they can become entrepreneurs by offering transportation services.
Now, more than 5,000 Dego Ride riders have been told to stop taking passengers. Should they be aggrieved, these urban youth, who are trying to make something of their situations?
At the end of the day, I do not see much difference between Grab or Dego Ride, apart from the number of wheels the vehicles have.
Zainul Arifin, a former NSTP group managing editor, is now a social
media observer