The attitude of Malaysian road-users towards safety campaigns held during festive seasons in Malaysia to raise safety awareness and prevent road deaths was critisised by Transport minister Datuk Sri Liow Tiong Lai. Speaking at the Yamaha “Balik kampung road safety campaign” held in Bentong, Pahang, Liow said despite the ministry and other related parties holding yearly campaigns, the death toll on highways and roads during the festive season has not changed.
“We hold these campaigns every year, and yet we still see a high number of accidents on the roads, especially during the balik kampung rush,” said Liow. “This has to change, and starting this year, we are going to increase enforcement, in cooperation with other agencies such as JPJ.”
Liow also mentioned that helmet use was poor, especially in rural areas, and said that many riders were using helmets that were past the shelf-life. “There are riders using helmets that are 10-, 15-, even 20-years old. Helmets have a shelf-life, and should not be beyond five years.”
Changes to the present helmet law are being considered, according to Liow, and the ministry is looking into making it mandatory for helmets to be “retired” after a certain period after manufacture. “We are considering this. When riding, the only real protection is the helmet, and an old helmet will not provide much protection.”
Enforcement will also be stepped up this year, with the involvement of related agencies in joint operations, according to Liow. “We are going to come down hard this year on law-breakers, and we shall be conducting joint-operations. For example, if JPJ is conducting an operation, then the police will also be involved to conduct checks on the drivers,” he said.
With the theme of “focus on the road, not on your hand”, this year’s Yamaha road safety campaign also illustrated the danger of using the hand-phone while driving. This was illustrated by a simple demonstration of a video of a person driving, looking down at the phone, and being involved in and accident in a split-second.
During the road safety campaign which is held at four locations – Bentong, Pahang; Sungai Dua, Penang; Sungai Petani, Kedah and Shah Alam, Selangor – riders can take advantage of safety checks conducted by Yamaha mechanics and 500 lucky participants will exchange their old, unsafe helmets for new KHI helmets.
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Every year there are 600,000 new cars and easily 1 million new motorcycles added to the road. How u expect lower accidents? By 5th year the numbers are 3 million units of new cars.
You can have a thousand campaigns a year but motorcyclists will still be motorcyclists. Uneducated thugs don’t care about laws. They’ll still casually run red lights, ride against the flow of traffic, and take unnecessary risks on busy roads. When they get knocked over by a car, the driver will get bashed up even though it’s 100% the cyclist’s fault.
You can amend thousands of laws but no one execute it. Just like you have anti-corruption body but no one prevent big crocodiles from stealing money.
Sendiri Cakap, Sendiri Syok, typical Proton mentality.
Oh, look at the traffic junction i saw there are always car beating yellow & red light.
How about emergency lane? Don’t tell me because you’re paying toll and roadtax so you’re entitled for it.
What is yellow box? No people give a damn in Malaysia. We just stop and tail gate the vehicle infront of us.
Yellow lane? Nah i just park my car for a few minute, nevermind other road user can just change lane to overtake it.
If you are driving an automatic car, it’s likely you would accelerate instead of giving way even though the car infront had put their indicator.
Regardless you’re driving or riding, you all are just as another stupid Malaysian road user.
kau blum negok motor pintas lalu smart tag lane kan?
ahh sakit punggung ker??
macamlah takda kereta yang pernah masuk lorong motorsikal dan kecemasan…
Enforcement attitude to safety is poor, changes in ministry being considered.
Malaysians are generally selfish and most of the time overestimate their capabilities to drive/ride. When a traffic light goes offline you see malaysians playing game of chicken. The one with the cheapest car got the least to lose. And tailgating. Those who barely completed 2 years probationary license already pretending they are rally drivers. Half the time accidents happen because these idiots can’t brake in time. Then unnecessarily causing trouble for all road users.
Let cars, petrol and toll be more expensive. That will weed out the uneducated, idiots and numbskulls from driving here. You lot can go drive elsewhere.
Tunggu ye, nanti RBAs and Party Harders datang bash sama lu
This applies to West Malaysian only. East Malaysian have more relaxed attitude while driving. East Malaysian don’t drive as fast, rarely honk or tailgate, more considerate to other motorist, more frequent on giving ways for pedestrians to cross the street.
I have lived in both places, and I know this first hand.
i’ve seen busses and lorries zipping downhill from mt. kinabalu road at 100km/h (not even exaggerating).
i was in my friend’s car and i have to say he wasn’t exactly “Driver of the Year” either..it’s the same whether you’re in East or West M’sia.
Is this a normal occurrence at Mt. Kinabalu? You see that one lorry, and he represents the whole of East Malaysia?
Compared to West Malaysia, you see lorries going through Karak highways like they’re Subaru Impreza. Even buses do that. And this is far more frequent. Not just one time. Many times. You can even see the results in the news that lead to several deaths & injuries.
Go to KL & Penang. You’ll know. Cursing, inappropriate hand gestures, tailgating, honking, merging into main road without looking for incoming cars, etc. You don’t see those as much in East Malaysia.
100km/h is very fast for East Malaysian. 100km/h is below average speed for West Malaysian. I moved to West Malaysia driving my normal speed of 60-80km/h. Takes quite some time to get used to driving at 110-120 km/h. And a lot of curse words spoken inside my car because of discontent with many of the drivers in West Malaysia.
Enforcement is poor. They know nothing will happen to them!
Take note Honda City ownerz.
Minor collision…airbags ruptured.
Fatality @ kota damansara.
Helmet law does not change attitude. Education needs to start from the young.
Sadly our education system as a whole is not tuned to the bringing up of children as cohesive members of civil society that adheres to the law and being selflessness when dealing with others… grades are more important now. Most parents are selfish n care less about others around them. Children learn from their elders thru what they see the elders do. The elders know that what they do is wrong but do it anyway.. and so the next generation see flauting the law and being selfish and inconsiderate as the norm… its always okay to double park, hogging the lanes, turn without signalling, drive like a maniac, queue jumping, driving in the emergency lanes, etc… thus the vicious cycle continues on and on.
True, i saw many times father riding with 2 small kids in a kapcai zic zac summore act samseng to other car driver. Yet i notice his kids front n back look so nervous frm their expression. Maybe they hav more kids so dont care much. Hopefully the children dont grow up as another snot.
Good luck… it’s just natural selection at work.
Yea Mr.Leow maybe your are right, but how about the failuire of government to provide better roads to the road users? nowadays not only that we can see alot of pot holes on most of the road in Malaysia, but safety features such as light pole, cat eyes, etc, also hard to spot, especially in rural area…Don’t just blame the road users, the government also need to play their part on this.
Pot holes! In 3 in years time quality of mercedes become like new proton and new proton become like motor. And motor…. as usual.
Even the best helmet won’t save life if one does not wear it.
Good idea if only there is enforcement.Getting rid of of old helmet for new ones is ok I guess but can we get rebate?I think is only fair especially for lower income group.
For me safety is not something that is not to be taken lightly.You don’t need reminders all the time.It is something that us people should know.In any road trip most important is don’t rush.Take your time to reach your destination.Do not set time limit as what time we must be there.This only will create impatience. The bane of motoring .
Safety is paramount.
Can you blame any Malaysian if they think one of the Ministers just bought a helmet factory?
most affordable helmet that sold in our local market is difficult to have a correct size that fit rider’s head.
first the government should enforce the manufacturer to produce/sell helmet with various of size of helmet.
Yes you can buy the correct size if helmet but its very expensive
Dear minister,. By now you should know that your method is not working. You increase the fine but the number keep on increasing. But still knowing about all this you still want to implement the same approach. You stupid or what? Yes, speed is dangerous, but speed alone is not the one to be blamed here. Its more on the driver’s attitude. I dont want to propose a solution or anything because it is your job to do that and we pay you to do that. You go to german and all just for makan angin, why dont you learn something from them. Please.
U know, in japan, first class soldier normally lead by lousy captain. That might explain their recession. In malaysia, when a keen minister wanna do something, the scenario will be lousy soldier lead by first class captain. Captain can shout, soldiers is playing cards. A keen ambitious captain, countless lousy soldiers. See what the mat salleh ceo of MAS say.
Many riders just couldn’t care less . Many can afford handphones costing 2k but buy a 30 ringgit helmet for head protection . Shocking attitude and priorities in life .
Natural selection at work
Of course it is poor, what do you expect when most malaysians are always dreaming on the road. Signal pun susah nk bagi weii..
Oh and we complain to become like EU too but shit attitude.
The problem is not the law, its the enforcement. Even in big cities, you could see these joyriders riding around with no helmet, additional passengers (more than 2) or without working lights. Some even have the cheek to ride past traffic police unafraid of any circumstances.
Additional laws can’t help them nor penalize them, the authorities are not doing their job, simple as that!! Focus your efforts on enforcement, not changing laws.
-BigBalls-
safety belt last time…
helmet story back again….
AES camera then…
and did any statistic of accident go down?…
YES, you already identify that it is road user “attitude”….so, how do you educate/improve this mindset?… JPJ/Police join venture to summon more?… zzzzz….
Ajar dah ajar, hukum dah hukum. Apa mau lagi?
Maybe shud rotan them in front of public. But thats like hu… oh wai
On the topic of SAFETY, what about “CAR SAFETY” like mandatory minimum of 6 airbags for newer models and what about those with lesser airbags or even none.
Airbags are not cheap. The minimum requirement for Malaysian cars now is 2. With 6 airbags, the cost of the vehicles will go up accordingly. Furthermore airbgs alone does not improve safety, if you don’t wear your seatbelts in the first place.
It also involves stronger body structure, ABS, VSC, etc.
Airbags do not necessarily save lives. Sometimes they take lives away. Case in point: Takata airbags.
Better to use all kinds of defensive driving skills to prevent collisions in the first place, e.g. keeping a very safe distance, signalling and slowing down before turning, turning the head around to look at blind spots before changing lanes, etc.
Vigilance saves lives. Airbags help in certain situations, but make them worse in others.
I stay in the heart of Shah Alam, and many folks here don’t wear helmets, espcecially children and teenagers. The Police station is hardly 1 km away!.
So the problem is everywhere, not just with ‘rural folks’. It’s an attitude problem. It starts with the parents.
Shah Alam is rural. Place for kampung people.
The mentality of Malaysians are a problem. Period.
Ahmad Maslan should be the poster boy for road safety, and use of helmets in particular.
From Ministers to road users, we are all Malaysian with similar mentality. We can never achieve 1st class mentality when comes to driving, traffic enforcement and road maintenance. Road users will always blame enforcement, road conditions & government but not themselves. It’s all boil down to parenting. Kids see how adults behave and drive everyday from sending them to school and having balik kampung trip. The cycle continues and same old same old. Welcome to Malaysia. We are all in it and we are all part of it.
To be honest, all these arguments are moot until a solid public transportation infrastructure is established.
Once that is a viable alternative mode of transport (and should be THE option for most people), new policies can be enforced to discourage driving:
Congestion charges, un-subsidised fuel, higher parking charges in central areas, emissions tax (to encourage smaller, greener, and more economical cars).
But people will move the motorcycles right? Wrong. Insurance for motorcycles are phenomenally high in most places around the world because it’s deemed high-risk. So you can afford your RM8k kapchai for sure but you really don’t want to be paying excess of RM10k for insurance EVERY YEAR…hence forcing people to use trains and other modes of transit.
Fewer vehicles on the road directly reduces the number of accidents because there’s less congestion, more space for everyone, so drivers and riders are just less angry all the time and do less stupid things on the road.
The JPJ and ministry of education should work together to create a syllabus for students especially Primary School regarding The Awareness of Road Safety. In point of view of a driver, passenger and pedestrian. As the children can be the reminder to the adults about do’s and don’t s when they on the road. Plus, for the children safety as well.
What? This means I need to buy new helmets? **** no! Don’t have the extra money to buy new helmets
If u accident become vegetable, u lagi takde duit. So whos the moron now?
U r surfing the internet, where the internet money come from?
Why bother with people who believes in reincarnation?
Can’t stop them from committing suicide intentionally