Bad habits and immaturity contribute to increase in road accidents

Tam (left) handing goodie bags to pedestrians at Jalan Wong Ah Fook on Sunday.

JOHOR BARU: Malaysians are still an immature lot when it comes to road safety and following traffic regulations, according to the Road Safety Department on Sunday.

Director-general Datuk Tam Weng Wah said that despite efforts and campaigns to educate the public about using zebra crossings, following the traffic lights and switching on the signal lights while driving, many are still not disciplined in that aspects.

He said that such bad habits and culture had contributed to the death toll because of their negligence on the road.

"The majority of road accidents in the country involved motorcycles, making up about 60% of the number of accidents nationwide, and it has been sitting in the top spot as the main killer in the past 10 years," he said after meeting pedestrians at Jalan Wong Ah Fook here to promote road safety.

Tam added that accidents involving cars were the second highest cause of road mishaps followed by incidents involving pedestrians with 20% and 9% respectively in the past decade.