Lee: Everyone must do their part to cultivate a road safety culture

PETALING JAYA: There is a need for political will to tackle rising road safety concerns, says Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye.

The Alliance for A Safe Community chairman pointed out that reckless riders who disregard traffic rules pose a significant threat to road safety and called upon road users to share the responsibility of cultivating a road safety culture.

“Every road user is responsible for making our roads safe because everyone faces a risk. It’s time for the government to have the political will to restore discipline and sanity on our roads,” he said when contacted.

One contentious issue Lee raised was the practice of offering discounts on traffic violation fines.

“You can’t have a situation where the police give this, the discount to the summons. It is rather strange,” he said.

Expressing concern about the increasing road accident statistics, Lee said the statistics show that 294,197 road accident cases were reported from January until June of this year, an increase of 13.3% compared to 283,065 cases reported in the same period of last year.

Lee underscored the need for unwavering political will in tackling Malaysia’s long-standing mat rempit problem.

He suggested learning from Vietnam, where similar challenges had been effectively managed.

“You look at Vietnam, for example. In Vietnam, the number of motorcyclists... by the millions. And yet, I don’t think you have problems like the mat rempit in Vietnam,” he added.

Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) chairman Dr Wong Shaw Voon said current enforcement and advocacy efforts might be insufficient to deal with the situation.

“Fatal road accidents are the leading cause of death among Malaysians between five and 40 years old.

“This is not only an unnecessary loss of lives but also a loss in national productivity as most of those killed are in the prime of their lives,” he said.

During the 7th United Nations Global Road Safety Week in Kuala Lumpur in May, statistics revealed that 545,630 road accidents were recorded in 2022 – about one accident per minute. Of this total, 6,067 resulted in fatalities.