Loke: Cabinet committee to tackle road safety and jams to meet three times a year

PETALING JAYA: Starting this year, a Cabinet committee will meet three times a year to address road safety and traffic congestion issues in the country.

Doing this would enable road safety strategies to be developed and reviewed at regular intervals, said Transport Minister Anthony Loke.

This move is part of the ministry’s efforts to tackle the rising number of road accidents in Malaysia.

“The ministry had proposed to combine the Cabinet Committee on Road Safety with the Cabinet Committee on Traffic Congestion so that both issues can be dealt with holistically.

“The Cabinet agreed to this proposal last Wednesday (Jan 3),” Loke told The Star.

Previously, the Cabinet Committee on Road Safety, which was set up in 1990, had only convened five times in 34 years.

He said he had impressed upon his ministry to be the driving force of the merged committee, known as the Cabinet Committee on Road Safety and Traffic Congestion.

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“As minister, I have made it clear that road safety is not a seasonal matter and must be tackled continuously and holistically.

“As such, I have also instructed my ministry to move away from the ‘business as usual’ practices such as holding road safety flag-off campaigns at rest and service areas (R&R) during festive seasons,” said Loke.

According to police statistics, a total of 598,635 road accidents were reported nationwide from Jan 1 to Dec 30 last year.

This number is 5.5% higher than the 567,516 road accidents recorded in 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

There has also been a spike in road deaths – from 6,080 in 2022, to 6,433 last year.

To further bring down the numbers, Loke said the ministry was working on a number of law reforms to discourage dangerous driving habits, with the aim to introduce the changes this year.

However, these proposed reforms were still in the pipeline and have yet to be finalised.

“We are also in the final stages of implementing e-testing for driving schools which will improve the quality of drivers and integrity of the test,” he added.

Under the e-testing system, the performance assessment of driving test candidates on the test circuit will be conducted electronically.

Such a system could help to reduce unethical practices such as “Lesen Kopi” or driving licences obtained through corrupt means.