In light of recent unfortunate incidents whereby children were maimed or killed in road accidents, the Attorney-General’s (AG) Chambers have motioned a proposal to the Road Transport Department (JPJ) to help curb the rise of such cases. In an interview with the News Straits Times, it was disclosed that AG, Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, will work with JPJ to amend the Road Transport Act 1987.
Said amendment would include an article that aims to penalise drivers who allow a child to travel sans the necessary safety restraints such as a child seat. Gani has suggested a fine similar to the ones slapped onto motorists caught driving without a seatbelt be imposed on those who neglect his/her child’s safety – currently, a fine of RM300 is issued to drivers and passengers of a vehicle caught without his/her belt buckled.
“It shouldn’t have to take a piece of legislation to make you, as parents care for the safety of your children… if you, as caring parents, use common sense, you wouldn’t risk your child being thrown out of your car,” said JPJ chief, Jaafar Mohamed. As a result, JPJ is looking into reviewing said act with the help of the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros).
In drawing up the amendment, the AG, along with Jaafar, will be looking to draw as much inspiration as possible from similar laws from other countries, with Australia pegged as a model example. The Australian Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) body indicates that children, ranging from the ages of six months to seven years, should be restrained “in a suitable and properly fastened, approved child restraint.”
Miros director-general, Professor Dr Wong Shaw Voon, highlighted the importance of employing reputable child seats in order to further safeguard a child’s safety in the unfortunate event of an accident. Securing one’s child with an adult seat belt is just as bad as it increases the chances of injuries during a crash – worst still, is the glaring number of parents who still hold their children in their laps while driving.
Most recently, an accident on the DUKE expressway saw the death of a seven month-old infant and her parents after they were flung out of their vehicle. The Malaysian Consumers Association secretary-general, Datuk Amarjit Singh Gill, commented that the infant would have survived if she was secured in a child seat.
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Penalize without education, counseling or retraining would be pointless.
Hopefully this opportunity is seized and made use of to educate the public on the importance of seatbelts and child seats.
AG talk big only. Basic laws also he cannot uphold. Basic theft also he cannot uphold. 1MDB scandal also he so scared to investigate he want to talk about child seats. Obviously even when it is implemented, the AG and the polis will not enforce it like all other proposed offences (remember back safety belts AG?)
I suggest AG, you go and investigate the Tabung Haji scandal and not the whistleblowers of the Tabung Haji Scandal. Get your priorities right AG, then come here and talk about child safety
What make AG thinks that penalising is the answer to everything?
Do we have law against red light offenders? Yes. Do you frequently encounter these bastards on the road on a daily basis. Yes. So where’s the disconnect here?
Do we encounter drivers driving dangerously on the free-way, changing lane without putting traffic signal, overtaking dangerously, driving slow while talking on the phone as if they own the road, cutting lanes without staying in queue, using the emergency lanes? To JPJ these are once in a blue moon occurrences. The law abider knows too well how many times these road terroriser are encountered. So still thinks JPJ is the solution and not the problem.
The way to solve this is education. And not just to the drivers. But JPJ personnel. Stricter road education/exams, stamp out graft related to road license examination and stricter road rules reinforcement. This is a systematic issue. And it all stem from a very sick Malaysia that our government is oblivious to.
Penalising roadusers are easy, educating and enforcement isn’t. Point being, illegal racing on public roads occurs almost weekly in many states, have we succesfully curbed it? I’m not against child restraining seats, but if illegal road race is rampant, what good introducing another law if the former problem hasn’t been dealt with properly. Does the AG done any studies or come up with solid statistics to come up with this proposal or is this another knee jerk reflex with flip flop reaction after it’s introduction I wonder.
Your Excellency Rulered,CORRECT,CORRECT,CORRECT.
JUST cos of this DUKE horrible accident,the authorities are having a knee jerk reaction.
Wait for one of the VVIP’s son perishing in another vehicle collision,then another hU ha….
Did you remember the last bus crash at Genting where many innocent lives are lost? What and where is the follow up ?
As usual the answer is ” SABAR LAH,KAMI AKAN MEMANTAU”.
Also,if they really are serious in enforcement,they should target the underage ,unlicensed,unhelmeted motorcycle riders who roam your suburbs unchallenged.They are killing machines,all it takes is a mistake and your innocent lives can vanish.Also,please jail those bike owners who give access to these hell riders.It is like putting a gun on the dining table,go for a smoke…and let them easy access to the gun.
As usual,the reply is ” AKAN MEMANTAU”.BOLEHLAND AKAN MEMANTAU.
There are still cars without rear safety belt and most rear passengers still travel without their safety belt secured. Now want to enforce kid’s seats? All talk and no action (enforcement), what’s the point?
I’d go one step further. If a child is killed in a car accident where it didn’t wear the proper restraint system, both parents are charged with murder, and sentenced to caning and prison. Yes, that may seem harsh, but maybe it makes people reconsider their actions.
Whatever rules been inforced is meaningless if you can’t even adhere to using simple seatbelt bec most people will not change unless this kind accident happen to their loved ones. Don’t stray away from the main issues which is focusing on removing/ severe punishment for those myvi bastards.
Won’t come to pass anytime soon. Reason: most buyers know that they have to get a mpv to meet their famiies requirements, When can only afford 1 car per household family. But 90% will not, as it’s not their image of what a “personal” transport is. With the amount avib to buy a proton or perodua mpv, they will go for what’s “hot” and “suit” it up with tail wings, flashy rims, lightings, etc. Or even have extra, will rather spend on add-on turbocharged. These cars won’t even fit their whole family on a weekend outing with everyone fasten with seat belts. Thus babies and small child on lap. Much less talking about a child seat taking out the space. The JPJ, traffic police knows these issues, heck even the govt knows it. But what can they do. Example; everyone is supposed to buckle up, even back seats,……. No action. Try asking the police issuing a summons on a family of 6-7 in a waja. Cars are so expensive in comparison to our living standards here. And We are not allow to compare car ownership by living standard with other nations. So Maybe the govt should look into putting MPVs under the same category as light trucks in Malaysia. Tax exemption, to make it affordable, allowing more models to come into malaysia. There are some very cool looking models not available here. May appeal to these owners. Affordable, cool looking, space for everyone plus the child seat. This is just my opinion.
about time this is made mandatory. So scary looking at parents wt kids/toddler on the front passenger seats with airbag! just imagine if the airbags are deployed…big punch on the kids/toddler face! why are they soo naive on such matters! educate and enforce this if they cant take care of their own children
yes make it mandatory to car users…and also to school busses and vans to have proper child restraint and seat belts too!!!
Gani
First of all dont penalise the victim
There must be a very super duper great incident that causes a 10-15kg human to be flung inside or outside
I am not campaigning for no seatbelt but the same concrete effort must be done to people who causes such incident in the first place
The same magnitude of penalty or much higher one must be imposed to the causer of such incident of which i believe is the result of ….. lets say a car crashing at 140kmh
Gani please pass a rule for me to catch these mindless crazy speedsters. I will install a high speed camera with a click on my steering wheel and i get u 20 summons everyday minimum. I will increase my own kpi by 50% every month and in return i need 25% of total annual revenue from the summon. To satisfy these stupid roadracers we u and me gani get the system audited and maintained by people with great creditial.
And for that also gani i need the system to be implemented inside a supervolace lamborghini of my choice and of which the government pay for. Get me trained by lamborghini psa for advanced driving skill.
Many crashes are fast enough to make the baby fly. 50 km/h is probably fast enough. That may not feel fast while sitting in a car, but it actually is really fast already.
Speeding is not particularly dangerous, driving irresponsible and oblivious to the surroundings is.
To those who criticize, I would say it IS reasonable to penalize people for not using common sense and would disregard basic safety for their children.
Do you need to be told not to jaywalk a busy & fast road and punished for doing so? I think any sane person would not cross, but Malaysians have borderline death-wish tendencies. So who knows…
AG you are wrong…
AG should focus on prosecute the members of parliament n the ikan jerung lor they are so many case of mismanagement of PUBLIC funds.
Don’t touch small fish “ikan bilis’ lor like road users.
AG advice is not welcome…WE NEED UR ACTION ON 1MDB NFC AND ETC…
FOCUS ON your main job
shut up.OR
RETIRED PLEASE
AG dun care about 1Mdb, just loose money.
AG dun care about child seat, will loose lives.
Which do you choose?
With this proposal the child car seat sellers have started to replace the price stickers to increase the price.
Knowing this is Malaysia, knowing the so-called leaders…..and knowing Malaysians whom have short lived memory……..I am betting my money that after all these hoo-haa in a month or so…….
Everything will be conveniently forgotten (again)…until a next similar accident happens again.
—Repeat process —
LOL….
not because they just kept introducing new and supposed to be a better enhancement of the law..
but towards the enforcement personels(not all, maybe 3/4) that never do their work….
e.g. they never stop those vehicle that not even have lights on it… be it a car, lorry, or motorcycle….
we have APJ1987 law which is comprehensive enough… sadly those enforcement are way terrible if compared to rusia…
KEJARA and stuff are all kinda bullshits that makes peoples laugh…
ohhh… i forgot… malaysia boleh!!!!
In the DUKE incident, please take action and penalize those at fault !! Them ask all the Motor Companies to give one Child seat for every unit of vehicle sold. So no excuse for not having a Child seat.
should air more video of the importance of using seatbelt, childseat and helmet.
Please remove that “video ditapis” and “UTC” ads….
talking about UTC, who pays UTC staff salary?
why UTC can make IC a day but why NRD have to wait a month? double standard again????
No sure if the NRD office at Jalan Duta Imigresen is a UTC or not, but it DID took me 1 day to get my IC and at same time did my passport. So not sure why u need wait 1 month. Which office did u go to?
the pakatroopers are back again. sigh.
We are big believers of using car seats and swear by the Britax ones our twins use. However, we always have a dilemma when traveling to and from the KL airports and also for airport runs in countries / locations we travel to. We try as much as we can to use our car with the car seats or to book transfers with car seats for these trips but it is not always practical or possible. Are there any good solutions for these situations? What do you think of ?
Also penalise all car makes that does not equip ABS, EBD, ESC as standard. These are essential in avoiding a collision in the first place.
Would like to see how they do the enforcement, especially for those family with alot of children
About damn time! Dont talk kik sing song only though, enforcement of this law is KEY!
talk talk and talk only….after few months, everything back to normal. like nothing happen….Btw, what happen to the rear seat belt enforcement?
Country like US have the car seat price just 35% of what we pay in Malaysia. I would strongly agree to save our next generation but gov need to make sure the car seat is affordable and tax free first. (Do check “Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 Car Seat” in amazon/Walmart and compare anyshop in Malaysia). I don’t talk crap.
1. A lot of us buy cars with ISOFIX feature not knowing what it is all about. This shows our awareness level on the subject
2. A lot of us tend to think child car seats are somewhat expensive. I do believe it is pricey but only due to the volume that each brand is selling
3. If we could choose 1 best brand and let them mass produce for Malaysian market I believe it can only go a lot cheaper.
4. I know this will open all sorts of criticism mainly corruption but we can try let the rakyat decide on the tender this time
5. Rather than subsidizing on BR1M, might as well get the govt to subsidize on child safety restraint
6. Try a google search “Melbourne Bike Share”
imagine family with 2-3 child using viva….need to buy 3 seat & the child mother no space to seat….put the mother to back bonnet…. silly law.