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Monitor Strictly the Enforcement of the Road Transport (Amendment) Act Speech by Dr Tan Seng Giaw, DAP National Vice-Chairman and MP for Kepong during the debate in the Dewan Rakyat on the Bill to amend the Road Transport Act 1987, on 14 July 1999. | |||||||
| Mr Speaker, Sir, I am not going to take a long time. With such amendments to the Act, I hope the number of road accidents will decrease. If this can happen, we would welcome the amendments. However, certain provisions give rise to doubts. Last night, the Honourable MP from Bagan mentioned the vicarious liability (liability on the owner of vehicle) that is contained in Section 109. I would not go into it further. I hope that the Ministry will review the effects of enforcing this and other sections from time to time. Justice should be done and should be manifestly seen to be done. Last year, there were over 11,000 cases of accidents with 339 deaths and, in the first five months of this year, there were already over 12,000 cases with 176 deaths. Mr Speaker, Sir, let me touch on the status of Putrajaya. I did ask about it three years ago. At that time, I was told that it was not yet decided. Now, these amendments enable Putrajaya Corporation to enforce all the provisions under the Act. We understand that as the administrative capital, Putrajaya is the twin city of Kuala Lumpur that is the commercial capital. KL is a federal territory; so should Putrajaya be. Mr Speaker, Sir, Sections 41,42,43,44,45,45A,45B, 45C and 109 increase penalties committed under them with jail terms two to 10 years and fines RM2,000 to RM500,000. We do not know how effective these will be. Sections 45D, 45F and 45G deal with taking of samples of blood and urine from whatever person without his or her permission. I believe that these are not enough. A more detailed amendments are needed. We understand that if a person involved in an accident is aggressive or drunk, he or she may be violent. For this type of people, refusal to give urine and blood sample should be made an offence. For example, in the United Kingdom, the law is more specific against this type of people. We hope that the Government will review these amendments. I would like to deal with the problems of monitoring, enforcement and the methods to process written summonses or notices. This | |
has to do with various factors including the quality of Road Transport Department and police personnel as well as the effectiveness of the courts. I have often faced problems because of irregularities in enforcement. For instance, in March last year, I received a case, the details of which I forwarded to the Transport Ministry twice. Notice A139228, lorry WGB 967 Lee Swee Swee, 2344, Jinjang North. Mr Lee bought a new lorry in November 1997. On 7 January last year, he drove an empty lorry pass Jinjang and was stopped at a road block manned by five members from the Road Transport Department . His vehicle was examined thoroughly. For some reasons (it might be his attitude thinking that the lorry was brand new), he was treated roughly and handed three notices concerning belching of dark fumes. On 4 February 1998, he took his vehicle for a test at the approved station and was issued a clean certificate, number 881178, Selangor Road Transport Department. But, he could not pay his road tax because the lorry was blacklisted. Every year, there are over 200,000 notices for traffic offences, out of which, about 80,000 are blacklisted. I contacted the Road Transport Department, Wangsa Maju, Kuala Lumpur, a few times trying to sort out Mr Lee's matter. He was then given a new notice to go to court. On 30 November 1998 and 2 December 1998, he went to the Magistrate Courts 7A and 7B, Jalan Raja, Kuala Lumpur, but he was told that there was no record. I asked a lawyer to have a look without success. I went to the courts personally and found that there was a shortage of legal officers (there are about 300 legal officers in the country) and the coordination between various bodies was bad. I had to contact Wangsa Maju again to get a new date for his court appearance. How can an ordinary person deal with the mace of irrationalities? I have asked some taxi and lorry drivers, they say," We pay first. If not, it is trouble." Hence, we need a task force to monitor the enforcement of the Act, the irrationalities and the irregularities. Dr Tan Seng Giaw | |||||
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