PUTRAJAYA: Admitting that previous national campaigns to reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities had failed miserably, the Transport Ministry has called for “bold measures” to be taken.
Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Ab Aziz Kaprawi today urged all relevant parties to come together to come up with such measures.
He even called on the Works Ministry to get involved, as public roads fell under its Public Works Department.
Aziz said the yearly death toll on the roads had been above 6,000 since 2003, and last year had breached the 7,000 mark with 7,152 fatalities nationwide.
He said all stakeholders, including himself, must accept the failure and find ways to improve things if Malaysia wanted to achieve its target of reducing by 50 per cent the number of road fatalities and serious injuries by 2020.
“We must take the failure seriously. I don’t want to see the number of road fatalities breach the 8,000 mark next year,” he said at the national-level World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims programme.
Also present were Road Safety Department director-general Datuk Rosli Isa, Road Transport Department Datuk Shaharuddin Khalid and Malaysian Institute of Road Safety (Miros) Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye.
In this respect, Aziz called on all relevant parties, including those the Works Ministry, to combine their resources and expertise to arrest the increase in road accidents and fatalities.
“All relevant agencies and departments should sit down and take stock of things. If need be, we must adopt bold measures to stop the rising number of road accidents,” he said, adding that Malaysia could also learn from countries such as Sweden which had low road accident and fatality rates.
On what possible bold measures could be adopted, Aziz said the relevant authorities including the Road Safety and Road Transport departments and Miros, would have to come up with their suggestions.
“Perhaps, it can range from stricter enforcement to introducing stern control on the country’s transport sector,” he added.
Earlier, Rosli said the number of road accidents recorded last year was nearly a million cases.
“There were 960,569 accidents recorded in 2016, with accidents involving motorcycles the highest at 670,935 cases followed by cars (135,121) and lorries (35,064).”
On types of fatal accidents recorded last year, Rosli said 1,590 cases were head-on collisions; 1,850 involved the loss of control of vehicles, 710 involved rear-end collisions, 949 were side-impact collisions and 420 cases were of vehicles being sideswiped.
Until September this year, he said, police had recorded 5,038 road fatalities.
“Fatalities among motorcyclists are still the highest, at 60 per cent.”
Rosli added that his department always welcomed any form of cooperation and contributions by any quarters in the effort to reduce road accidents in Malaysia.
“The department has continuously conducted various initiatives to promote road safety, including implementing Road Safety Education syllabus in primary schools, kindergartens and pre-schools tentatively in 2019 and in secondary schools in 2020.
“Coupled with the implementation of the Automated Awareness Safety System (Awas) this year, these initiatives can help the government in realising its objective to reduce road accidents and fatalities,” he said.