Managing The High Costs Of Road Deaths

KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 (Bernama) -- When Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy switched on his handphone on arrival at London's Heathrow Airport last Nov 6 after a flight from Kuala Lumpur, one short messaging service (SMS) gave him a shocking welcome.
The SMS came from Suret Singh, the Director-General of the Road Safety Department, who told his boss that 29 people died in road accidents the day earlier in Malaysia as recorded in the annual two-week operation by the police to reduce road fatalities during the festive season.
The death toll on that particular day during the last Hari Raya season was the highest since what the police called Ops Sikap was launched in 2001.
Ops Sikap replaced Ops Statik which was started in 1997. Suret makes it a point to SMS Chan the daily fatality figures during such an operation.
What shocked Chan was that it was much higher than the daily average of 17 deaths registered over the last few years which means that between 6,200 and 6,300 people die every year in road accidents in the country.
Chan readily admits that bringing down the number of road fatalities is his most difficult task and biggest challenge as Transport Minister, simply because of the tremendous odds against achieving this objective.
"When I became Transport Minister two-and-a-half-years ago, I thought the biggest challenge was to build ports and airports. But it is nothing compared to bringing down the number of road deaths which is actually a nightmare," he told journalists at the ministry's media night the other day.
"When I received that SMS at Heathrow Airport from Suret, it really spoilt my day. I couldn't eat well the whole day," said Chan.
Turning to Suret, who was also present, he said: "Datuk Suret, oh, you are not yet a Datuk....but if you can bring down further the number of fatal accidents, I think you can be a Datuk soon".
Is the task doable? Just consider these facts -- Malaysia with a population of 25 million has 14 million vehicles and to compound this, motorcycles, considered the most vulnerable to road accidents, make up half the number.
Between 60 and 65 per cent of those killed in road accidents are motorcyclists and their pillion riders, suggesting that efforts to reduce road deaths won't likely to succeed if the number of these two-wheelers keeps rising unabatedly as it is now.
The motorcycle density has a direct effect in making Malaysia's road deaths one of the world's highest.
Countries like England, Germany and Spain have lower death toll per 100,000 people than Malaysia's rate of 25 and one probable reason is their motorcycle population is only 3 per cent compared with 50 locally.
Malaysia, which enjoys virtually the freest car democracy, registered 1.02 million vehicles last year, up almost 10 per cent from the previous year, with 45 per cent being motorcycles.
The number is expected to rise steadily as finance companies come up with longer term installment schemes merely to boost car sales.
Another odd against road safety efforts is that unlike in some countries which have laws to discourage car ownership, the same cannot be done in Malaysia because the survival of the national car industry largely depends on domestic sales.
Suret and other agencies tasked with road safety like the traffic police and the Road Transport Department (RTD) have also to contend with some 10 million drivers.
A lot has been written about the ugly image of Malaysian drivers and how negatively they behave when they are on the road compared to off it.
At least 400,000 new drivers join the rank of motorists every year and their number is also expected to swell especially with the relaxed financing rules.
According to Suret, except for the unusually high fatality rate of 29 on Nov 5, the daily death toll dropped to 15.5 during the latest operation carried out over 15 days from Jan 23 for the Chinese New Year season compared with 17 on other days.
During Ops Sikap, an estimated two million motorists join the so- called "balik kampung" exodus to get to their destinations from cities and big towns, especially the densely populated Klang Valley.
But Suret agrees that there has been too much media hype surrounding Ops Sikap, with its daily death toll making headlines, while on other days, just about the same number of fatal accidents occurred anyway without alarm bells ringing.
During Ops Sikap, thousands of extra traffic policemen and RTD personnel are deployed throughout the country looking out for traffic offenders.
Besides this, lorries and trucks are taken off the road during peak hours while express bus drivers come under closer scrutiny.
"It is beginning to bear some results because although the number of vehicles on the roads double during the festive reason, the number of road deaths have actually come down compared to the non-festive season.
But Suret says it is far too early to declare Ops Sikap a success and the recent figures could very well be just an aberration.
If he has his way, it makes more sense for Ops Sikap to be a all-year round affair instead of just during the festive season.
"To enable an all year-round operation, the police and the RTD need to overcome their logistic problems. But the logistics are expected to be in place when surveillance cameras and the enforcement system being considered by the Transport Ministry are implemented," said Suret.
Besides the unquantifiable loss of lives -- many in their prime and productive ages -- and untold sufferings of the loved ones left behind, road accidents also cause an unnecessary huge drain on the country's economy.
Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek says that one road accident victim is admitted to hospital every six minutes, further aggravating hospital congestion and the workload of doctors and paramedics who have to deal with countless other ailments and diseases.
He estimates the nation loses between RM5.4 billion and RM5.7 billion due to road accidents. If the loss of human lives in the road carnage is not checked, the nation's drive to develop its young human capital might also be undermined.
Dr Chua, whose ministry is in the frontline in bearing the costs of dealing with road accident victims, recently made an appeal to local car manufacturers to make their cars safer for the sake of saving lives.
Suret is already thinking out of the box on this. He is in the midst of getting local car makers to install safety gadgets like air-bags and the ABS brake system in all future cars sold in the country.
The ABS is an anti-lock brake system which prevents the car from skidding during braking.
"I really hope this can be done quickly," he told Bernama.
No doubt these gadgets will up the price of cars, but with longer repayment schemes, the average car buyer needs to pay just an insignificant sum extra.
It is the least they could do to help tackle what to Transport Minister Chan and others dealing with road safety, has been a nightmare.