Profiling dangerous drivers

NST: A new approach — identifying motorists who are accident-prone — is being taken by the authorities to reduce road fatalities.
The information will then be used to target specific groups, thus making safety campaigns more effective.
Called the "Fatality Index", it will be used to evaluate the driving pattern of motorists according to their age, occupation and gender.
"It will also help identify the right type of road safety campaigns for different categories of motorists," said Universiti Putra Malaysia Road Safety Research Centre director Prof Dr Radin Umar Radin Sohadi.
He said a random survey would be carried out to profile motorists according to their race and monthly income.
"It will also detail the mileage made per year."
Recently, the research centre completed a three-month survey of 1,430 drivers in Selangor.
It showed that drivers living in urban areas travelled an average of 30,255km per year, while motorcyclists travelled at least 19,276km a year.
"Motorcyclists and those who travel a lot are still in the highest risk group," he said.
He said the survey also showed that men travelled more than women.
"The index will also be introduced to other States in Malaysia. It will evaluate the effectiveness of road safety campaigns in each State."
Road Safety Department director-general Suret Singh said the index would act as an additional indicator in studying accident rates in Malaysia.
"The index has been successfully used by most developed countries and helps them know the safety level in each place," he said.
The index is based on fatalities over one billion vehicle kilometres travelled. It covers car occupants and motorcyclists based on their travel exposure, which is based on vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT).
At present, two indicators are used to assess road fatalities in the country: Fatalities per 10,000 vehicles and fatalities per 100,000 population.
Radin said: "These two indicators are commonly used in developing and less developed countries. But they are not so accurate as they are subject to the increase of vehicle ownership and population which fluctuates drastically over time."
In addition, a few vehicles can be owned by one person and an increase in vehicles does not necessarily indicate an increase in the number of vehicles on the road.
"Vehicle ownership and population do not necessarily indicate the real amount of accident exposure in a country."
Due to this disadvantage, Suret said a better indicator accepted by most developed countries — the Fatality Index — would be adopted.
Last year, Malaysia recorded more than 6,000 fatalities while most developed countries had recorded about 2,000 fatalities.
The overall fatality index for Malaysia is 18.5 fatalities per billion VKT. In developed countries, it is below 10 fatalities per billion VKT.
"It basically still adds up to 4.5 fatalities per 10,000 registered vehicles while in developed countries, the figure comes to less than two fatalities per 10,000 registered vehicles." said Radin.
"But the new index will give us an accurate travelling exposure of each group," he added.