Recently, a road safety advocate and journalist forwarded me a notice of a meeting scheduled on June 26. The logo of the Road Transport Expert Association (RSEA) was placed on the top left of the notice, and the Malaysian Eminent Persons on Road Safety on the top right.
RSEA tagline reads “Road Safety is Our Business”, and the topic was “Kap Cai a Growing Threat to Public Safety”.
The notice displayed the identification photos, names and credentials of six persons including four panelists, who had often been quoted by the media on road safety.
Although it was a good initiative, changes are likely to be minimal, if any.
This is because the six eminent persons already have access to the media and government machinery. If they have any sound proposals, they should have voiced out earlier and not wait for an online discussion.
If they have already done so and the powers that be did not act, through lack of political will or other reasons, why would the authorities choose to do so now? But many people form or helm associations to engage with the government and like to be recognised as leaders in their fields.
Since 2010, I have written over 2,000 published articles to share my perspective on various issues and offer proposals to overcome them. If asked to pick one that can contribute most to our country, I would choose road safety, although I am not regarded as an expert in this area.
However, in this new millennium, so-called experts may be deemed as the most knowledgeable, but they are also the ones holding us back if breakthroughs are needed to transform societies and industries, as can be seen in the rise of China and stagnation of fully developed countries.
Any industry, service, society or nation could take a quantum leap forward by discarding old mindsets, habits and archaic practices. This includes many countries in Africa, which is the least developed continent, despite its proximity to Europe, regarded as the most developed continent.
In the 1990s, Malaysians travelling to China were horrified by its backwardness, such as people squatting in a row next to each other to defecate in some public toilets. But within two decades, the country was transformed to be among the cleanest and with the most modern infrastructure.
So, instead of continuing with more of the same, it is better to take a radical approach. But no government of the day will have the political will to change things, even if they are for the better, if they are not popular with most voters, which could result in losing the next general elections.
In 2003, I proposed the most radical approach and effective method to improve road safety, and that was 22 years ago. Had it been adopted and implemented, the number of road fatalities and injuries, together with collision damage and street crimes, would have been greatly reduced.
In the decade from 2010 to 2019, the number of people who died in road accidents was 67,304. If this rate were to be applied for the 22 years from 2003 to 2025, the total number would be 148,068.
Reducing it by half would have saved 74,034 lives and countless number of injuries.
While we should continue to enhance the 3Es of road safety, which are engineering of roads and vehicles, education of users and authorities, and enforcement using technology and being physically present, they are not enough, even if we keep discussing them for another 22 years.
In 2003, I proposed that surveillance be privatised with the enforcement agencies retaining full control of issuing summonses. Concessionaires are to be appointed to hire and train camera crews to be stationed at selected or random spots all over the country to deter traffic offences.
They are to don bright colour uniforms to be easily spotted and not hide behind pillars or bushes and not wait for offences to be committed. Those who turned a blind eye will have their offences recorded and submitted to various enforcement agencies for appropriate actions to be taken.
Concessionaires could be paid based on a percentage of the fines collected. In this way, the government does not have to spend a single sen. Then, CCTV cameras were costly and if their presence goes unnoticed, they would not be effective in deterring traffic offences and crimes.
Millions throng places of worship in our country and many are God-fearing. But most people fear police or MACC officers even more. Motorists are automatically at their best behaviour upon spotting a patrol car in a rearview mirror, fearing being stopped for reckless driving.
Likewise, the behaviour of motorists and especially motorcyclists will change with the presence of camera crews who could zoom their cameras at number plates if offenders ignore red lights, which has become the norm, facilitating snatch thieves to easily get away unimpeded.
After I had made the presentation on ‘Privatised Massive Surveillance’ in a road safety forum held at Balai Berita in 2003, I was interviewed by a reporter on my proposal and road safety in general. The contents were published full-page in Berita Minggu, a broadsheet newspaper.
In later years, my articles on this proposal were published by several newspapers but ignored by the authorities. But in September 2013, the Automated Enforcement System (AES) was introduced but turned out to be a fiasco, and huge compensation was paid to terminate it.
In 2015, I wrote “All eyes on road safety” and proposed that the law be amended to allow videos or photos taken by dashboard cameras to be accepted as evidence in court.
If so, thousands of private and commercial vehicles can participate by installing high quality dash cams and submit evidence of traffic violations and even corruption and crime for reward.
But this would not be acceptable if we are much like people in Western countries where privacy is valued more than public safety. Globally, countries and cities with CCTV cameras everywhere are among the safest in the world, more so in those equipped with facial recognition cameras.
While enforcement officers can only be present at selected spots but not 24/7, we could rope in millions of motorists to conduct surveillance using their dashcams. This would deter many from jumping red lights, hogging yellow boxes, breaching double white lines and driving recklessly.
RapidKL buses fitted with dash cams at the front, side and rear could easily record thousands of traffic offences daily, including illegal parking in city streets and residential areas, obstructing traffic by parking near junctions or traffic lights, and also right at the bus stops and bus stands. – June 29, 2025
YS Chan is Scoop reader