A proposal by Malaysian police to limit teenage and young adult riders to small capacity motorcycles is being studied by the Road Transport Department (JPJ). This was reported by national news agency Bernama saying JPJ director-general Datuk Zailani Hashim not decision has been made on the proposal as yet.
Any decision on such a proposal would have to be discussed in depth with the Malaysian Institute for Road Safety Research and the Public Works Department, Zailani is reported to have said. “The proposal was made due to the increase in the number of accidents and deaths involving high-powered motorcyclists involving youths, aged between 16 and 20 years,” said Zailani.
This issue was raised after an article appeared in portal Free Malaysia Today saying Bakri Zainal Abidin, deputy director of enforcement for Bukit Aman’s Traffic Investigation and Enforcement Division (JSPT) made such a statement in speech. From Free Malaysia’s Today’s report, this was taken from an audio of recording of the speech made in 2019 during the Road Safety Council (MKJR) annual general meeting in 2019.
Bakri is quoted as saying, “new laws should be considered within five years for a new licence class for teenagers, where they will only be allowed to ride small engine capacity or low-powered electric motorcycles.” Additionally, in 2007, Consumers Association of Penang president, the late SM Mohamed Idris, urged the government to allow motorcyclists aged 17 to 21 to only ride motorcycles displacing 70 cc and below.
It should be noted there has not been a 70 cc motorcycle available for sale in Malaysia since the 1970s and such a motorcycle will struggle to reach a speed of 80 kmh. In discussion with industry colleague Albakry “Buck” Salehuddin of FSR Technology, who has extensive experience in mainstream journalism, riding motorcycles and currently engaged in motorcycle performance upgrades, this speed disparity makes it more dangerous for the rider.
“Can you imagine tooling up to manufacture a 70 cc kapchai just for the Malaysian market? It won’t happen because the Malaysian motorcycle market is so small, the cost of doing so will take millions (of Ringgit),” said Buck. Buck says a better solution is proper enforcement by the authorities, not just holding periodic traffic operations and ad hoc roadblocks as well as better driver and rider training from a young age.
I don’t know why anyone would pooh-pooh this idea as it has been done in Western countries for decades. The idea is having prohibitively very expensive yearly insurance to cover young riders/drivers of high powered vehicles. This makes only those who can afford to ride responsibly to continue doing so.
And why is ‘Buck’ bringing up the issue of locally making the small CC bikes, did he even consider imports or local assembly? Come on!
There is no 70cc restriction in western countries.
Only 125cc, and special low powered (restricted) motorcycles in australia.
The problem with this 70cc restriction idea is, there is practically zero new 70cc motorcycles for sale right now.
How do you do JPJ tests? All trainings and tests to be done on depilated 30-40 year old honda C70s?
Then would you need to retest to ride bigger bikes? Double costs for many who cant afford to even take 1 test!
Lesen taking from age-21. Do mental test along
The point is lack of regular unannounced enforcement all year round.Have u seen underage kids n even adult riders without helmets?We can have do s and don’t s but the enforcement is only seen after some vvip got hurt .
No point enforcement if their parents are riding bikes without helmet, working lights, riding in opposing directions, not respecting other road users. Monkey see monkeys do. Better to educate the parents than punish the children.
Good to see juveniles commute on electric motorcycle with maximum velocity capped at 50 km/h soon.
This would be a reasonable compromise I believe.
Still to fast. They should try walking.
the flaws of all kapchai is couldn’t stop in time at short distance once going up in speed
Why not banned sales of new kapchai ?
Yes, because everyone is rich and can afford car
Countless meetings, more studies, etc. with numerous makan karipap, nasi lemak, minum teh tarik session in between.
At the end, habuk pun tarak. Expected, not suprised, and everything back to normal.
Jangan cakap sahaja. Buat. Sekarang budak-budak tak dapat motor tak nak pergi sekolah. Mak ayah ikutkanlah apa yang anak nak,senang katanya anak nak berulang alik. Berlaku kemalangan baru nak tengadah.
klau aku cakap ‘tak nak gi skolah’ sbb Tak dpt motor, kat bapak aku dulu, dia bagi aku boot kulit satu kat muka… Bapak2 dulu Sayang anak punya sbb la macam2 Tak boleh buat. Bapak2 skrg ni Sayang anak punya pasal la Tak reti nak say ‘no’.
All these implementations are useless. The only way that works is to potong jari if they commit thr offences
the prob is that the youngster offender are not bothered at all. Parents all too busy cari makan, I guess.
Tarak lesen? Tarak roadtax or insurance? No problem for them becoz they will still ride. Legal or not legal. Abang abang polis tangkap, but what would they do at the end?
Enforce speed limiter on all bikes better…
Ever tried overtaking a huge lorry, yes it’s a pain in 50hp bike, let alone a 14hp sometimes kapchais
The idea is good, same goes to putting a limiter on the bikes, but the real problem is that they are not obeying the traffic rules, they view challenging the rules as a trophy to them.
Second, in the rural area, law enforcement aren’t that tight, you can see not only the young kids offending almost all the traffic rules for riding motorcycle, but the adults too, not wearing helmet, no road tax, no license…etc, etc. And these happens in town area too.
Third, who doesn’t want money, even the under-21 are bound with 70cc or a limited motorcycle, there will be repair/modification shops that are willing to help them to modify the output of the 70cc engine and overwrite the limiter.
I would say that the ways of preventing the activities like mat rempit or street racing is to enforce a stricter punishment, older age to obtain license (both motorcycle and car) and by education. I just wonder why Malaysia still allow 16 years old able to get riding license when we facing high death toll of teenagers involving motorcycle, high powered or not.
There’s no point in putting a cap on CC for younger riders youths will always be youths.Whether it’s with a car or a motorcycle it doesn’t matter youths love going fast and that is a risk they are young! Limiting to 70CC ? Your all mad! Malaysia is known for modifying small CC bikes or cubs for short even a scooter can be modified.How do you reduce the death toll for youths? as long as they are riding Motorcycles the risk is there it’s a calculated risk the moment you get on!Give them a car they will drive fast point is they are youths Ignore this bull crap of an idea it will never work!
Just increase the age for bikes license to 19yrs old and car to 21yrs old problem settle. Speedlimiter by factory spec is good idea too, but plz also limit those lorry as well to 90kmh, always speeding and tailgating in fastlane, really scary! And plz make a lane separate car & bikes, as these bikers dont know car got blindspot, yet zigzag around it. Really hope all the highway separate it.
just ban the kapchai bikes
how can any bike above 70cc is counted as high-powered bikes? these bikes generally produce less than 20hp for bikes below 200cc. a 110cc bikes produces about 10hp +-. even a 200cc bike top speed is about 150kmph. so they are not fast nor powerful. the regulation is that all bikers need to wear protective gears like jacket, pants and glove. make it mandatory for them to have a fullface helmet instead of those cheapo MS88 or SGV helmet.
Enforcer will not monitor as there are already many kapchai with illegal modification with exhaust so loud like there is no exhaust used.