The transport ministry said that there have been 807 accidents involving vehicles driving against the flow of traffic since January this year. Out of that total, 29 fatalities were recorded, 17 cases had serious injuries, 49 with minor injuries and 712 cases involving damage.
The statistics were revealed by transport minister Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong yesterday during question time at the Dewan Rakyat. He said that such accidents were primarily due to human factors, such as driving under the influence of either drugs or alcohol, speeding or because of a lack of focus while on the road.
He however noted that fatal crashes involving those who were under the influence of drugs and alcohol had dropped slightly following the introduction of harsher penalties introduced under amendments to the Road Transport Act 1987, The Star reports.
“Based on the data we received, from January until July this year, the total number of fatal car crashes stood at 2,560 cases. From the total, 11 cases involving fatalities were due to the influence of alcohol and drugs,” he said.
He said that initial findings from a Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) study have revealed that the new intervention measures look to be working. The ongoing study, which has been commissioned by the ministry, is looking to establish if the harsher penalties have helped reduce occurrences of driving under influence.
“From what we have found, the mandatory jail term does serve as a deterrent,” he said, pointing out that there has been a change of mindset from before, when many would attempt to drive home despite being inebriated.
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Apparently driving against traffic is quite significant after all. So there appears to be some merit and validity to discourage senior citizens from driving thru regular medical exams. Please do not selfish. All must think Safety First!
According to report, most of those driving against traffic were under the influence of drink or drugs.
driving against traffic is an old habit carried over from kapchai rider especially those f&b delivery riders
Charge those who drives against traffic that causes death as murder which carries the death penalty. for those that did not cause death, charge them for attempted murder which provides an imprisonment for up to 20 years upon conviction.
If they are 80-90 years old, how can send them to jail for murder? Sure they will die sooner than later behind bars, no judge will be this heartless to commit that sentence. Better to stop them from driving b4 they get into trouble.
Do these stats include Malaysia’s unique phenomenon – motorcyclists? Or is Datuk Seri Wee never going to address this, other than PDRM asking the public to provide visual evidence of these nimble hooligans going against traffic?
As you said; nimble. The chances of them getting into accidents due to going the wrong way is certainly smaller than a car doing the same.
Motorcycle who go against traffic must be jailed too. Third world backward mentality with no regard for the law.
If they are so nimble, why most of the time I, in the car, have to evade them when they are riding against the traffic as a “shortcut” because they are too lazy to follow the long way around the one-way street?
In my honest opinion, driving against flow happens sometime bcoz of the signage not clearly put to be sighted i.e block by tree or illegal ad stickers, some road mark arrow faded, poor lighting and strange road design. Hopefully the JKR and municipal can do frequent maintenance to avoid problem later. Tq
We must ask the right question. 1) is this an increasing cases? 2) who are the culprits? DUI-alcohol, drugs? 3)What can be done to prohibits this occurrence from happening again (apart from senior citizen driving)? ie better signages, making illegal/wrong entry more difficult?
this is not age related problem alone.
Because of confusingly design roads…
Unless you came from Western countries that drives on Right side of the road and you are pretty new to driving in Commonwealth countries, how can road designs lead you to think driving on Right side here is okay?
2560 fatal crashes and only 11 were alcohol related. I suppose not drinking is more angerous.
Clueless drivers produced by the current driver education system.
I think they are probably motorcycle related, involving heavy vehicles, or high speed accidents.
While we can’t do much about motorcycles and heavy vehicles, we could drive sensibly and avoid driving like crazy demons on public roads.
If we have the urge for velocity, either do it on race tracks or in video games.