solving road accidents?

yesterday i share tips from NST on how you, as a driver can avoid accidents on the road, especially during this festive season when the balik kaumpung rush begins.

then waking up in the morning yesterday, this headline ‘pak lah propose new measures to curb road accidents’ in the star front page greeted me.

and what is the new measure? he wants the driving licence of motorists who cause accidents to be seized and held for 2 weeks by the traffic police in the district where the accident happened.

er… come again? to be seized there and then at the place where the accident happened? as justme had pointed out in comments at the post below, how will the police identify who’s the guilty party there and then?

usually in an accidents, it needs investigation first to check who’s the guilty one.
right on spot of the accident, of course nobody would admit their guilt.

suspending the licence of the really guilty ones is a good idea BUT that will have to be done after a through investigation or even after a court proceedings, certainly not right on the spot where the accident happened.

in the bernama report of the same subject, pak lah was heard to say that he was ashamed of the country’s road accident’s statistic, especially the fatalities, which ranked among the worst in the world.

We are proud of Petronas Twin Towers, which is the tallest in the world, and we are proud of other achievements but this (the accident rate) is one subject Malaysia cannot be proud of.

“We have built a world class road network, wide and extensive, but we continue to drive in a shameful manner,” he said.

he ended up with a plea to all drivers to drive carefully because “i hope you would not make me cry.”

i suppose he was afraid that he would end up crying this festive season, hence his proposal of having licence seized there and then…. to frighten the drivers!

in another related topic about accidents, the minister of transport, datuk seri chan kong choy proposed that the minimum age for obtaining a motorcycle licence to be raised from the age of 16 to 17. he said that most road fatalities involved motorcyclists, and those at age 16 will not be matured and responsible enough to handle a motorbike. just one year? what’s the point? makes no difference to me. might as well don’t raise it, but if want to raise it, i’ll propose the age of 20. when a person is out of his/her teens.

anyway, these 2 proposals, one by the PM and the other by the transport minister, would not solve the road accidents problem, i’m sure. so what would? that’s the RM64m question. i suppose before we move into solving the problem, we should address the cause first. well, according to our transport minister, in that same news report,
there had been a study by a group of experts on road accidents going on, and they will submit their report to the government very soon. so let’s wait and see…….

related articles:
automatic suspension for drivers in accidents.
licence suspension: authorities need to study thoroughly.