Cancel that ticket to drive

After every major accident, we hear of drivers who have multiple summonses. Why can’t we stop such reckless people before they get behind the wheel?

MY vehicle road tax expires on Tuesday. So last week, I called an agency to renew my insurance and road tax.

A day later, a woman called to say my road tax could not be renewed – I had a summons to pay.

I checked the MyBayarPDRM app. Nothing. I then checked the MyJPJ (Road Transport Depart­ment) app. Yes, apparently, I had driven beyond the speed limit somewhere in Ipoh in July last year. I paid the RM150, and I have got my road tax now.

Which brings me to my question: If you cannot get your road tax when you have just one summons, why are there commercial vehicle drivers still on the road with dozens of summonses in their name? Why are they not barred from driving?

Every time there is an accident involving heavy vehicles, there is a standard story that follows: Both the driver and company involved have a stack of unpaid summonses.

Here are some shocking statistics: The bus driver in last week’s accident in Gerik, Perak, which killed 15 students, had 18 summonses, 13 of them for speeding. But he could well be an angel compared to so many others.

Remember the fatal bus crash in Genting Highlands on June 30 last year when two Chinese tourists died? The driver had 27 previous summonses, and was driving without a valid licence.

Weeks earlier, 10 passengers were injured after an express bus collided with a lorry on the North-South Expressway near Gopeng, Perak. That driver had 15 summonses.

In May last year, an express bus skidded and overturned on the North-South Expressway near the Menora Tunnel, Perak, injuring 21 passengers. The driver had nine summonses, while the bus company had 16.

The list goes on. And if many bus drivers – not all of them, though – are bad, lorry drivers are worse.

In July 2002, a lorry crashed into 11 vehicles at the Johor Causeway. The driver had 33 summonses.

In February this year, a lorry driver led cops on a 25km highway chase before his vehicle rammed into a house. He had eight summonses and was not licensed to drive the lorry.

But the one who takes the cake has to be the driver who reversed his lorry into an elderly man near Ipoh in June last year. He had 100 summonses.

It’s astounding – 100 summonses and the man was still behind the wheel. Why was he not stopped from driving?

Obviously, there are electronic records of summonses, kept by both by police and the JPJ. So, why is it that there is no mechanism to raise red flags when a driver racks up more than, say, three or five summonses?

The system could track the driver down and suspend his licence until he at least undergoes a refresher course.

If he is recalcitrant and stays a habitual offender, his public vehicle driving licence could be withdrawn for good.

The Kejara demerit system, like one expert said, looks to be an abject failure.

Did you know you are not docked points until you pay the fine? Well, it seems like I now have demerit points, while those who rack up summonses without paying don’t.

A registry of bad drivers is a good idea. But even then, enforcement is important.

The Ops Selamat they have every now and then should not just be during festivities – it should be a year-round affair.

And if any blacklisted driver is caught behind the wheel, the company should be made to pay a heavy price.

In this age of technology and artificial intelligence, there is also no reason why we cannot have a database of all public vehicles.

Imagine, before you get on a bus, you can know when it was last serviced, when it underwent its last inspection, and also find out details about the driver.

The passengers can report bus operators who do not make available such data.

However, the biggest asset to road safety has to be the attitudes of drivers and vehicle owners themselves.

I have been to India a number of times, and, despite the rather misguided notion here, they do have some good highways there.

On one such trip, the driver of the minibus – or tempo as they are called there – was going at about 90kph.

I asked him to speed up as we had a long way to go. He told me the speed limit was 90kph and he would not break the law.

We can find drivers like that in places like Japan and in Europe, too. That is what we need – people who respect the law because it is the law.

We don’t need reckless drivers; we need those who are mindful of the fact that they are responsible for many lives.

Abiding by the law and caring for the safety of passengers should be a culture, not something to be forced upon drivers.

In the case of the Gerik crash, there was another major killer: the metal guardrail.

It was like a giant spear that pierced the windshield and impaled the bus right up to the last seat, shredding the seats, ripping open the bus roof, and very likely causing the deaths of many of the students.

Those guardrails are a danger to motorists and many countries around the world are taking them down. So what are the options?

The answer could come from Tibetan Buddhism. You know those prayer wheels they have that you can spin with your hands?

A South Korean engineer was inspired by them to create guardrails that look like such wheels but with plastic barrels in place of the spinners.

These plastic guards ensure that vehicles that smash into them rebound off the rails while still rolling down the road, dissipating the impact.

It’s not a perfect answer – the vehicles could bounce back into traffic – but it’s safer than those killer metal lances running by the side, and the centre, of our roads.

We need to guard ourselves against traffic hazards, both human and inanimate.