Malaysians are good drivers with bad habits

Post date: May 29, 2010 6:42:4 AM

The Star Online > Focus

Saturday May 29, 2010

Malaysians are good drivers with bad habits

ON my way to work recently, I saw a woman who was carrying a baby in the rear seat of a taxi. The baby was merely sitting on her lap. I have also seen children riding pillion motorcycles without crash helmets. And there are children who stand on the rear seats of cars, completely unrestrained.

A recent newspaper report stated that there were 6,500 road deaths in 2009 in Malaysia. Another article reported a road accident in which five out of seven people (including three children) were killed.

Newspaper articles and editorials slam bad Malaysian drivers and motorcyclists as the root cause for the high casualty rate. I am not convinced that it is quite so cut and dry. Worse, some articles imply that fatal accidents do not happen to law-abiding citizens.

The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research website reveals that MIROS clearly does not have a project at the national-level or a research to look into the use of infant and child car seats. There are even no statement by any official over the issue.

“Rear-facing infant seats reduce the risk of fatal injury in a crash by more than 70%, forward-facing toddler seats by more than 50% and safety belts by 45%. In the US, only 10% of children under the age of five travel unrestrained – but they account for more than half of child deaths in cars”. That’s a quote from a Britain’s Automobile Association leaflet.

“And seat belts save lives – in countries with the lowest child fatality rates, 90% of passengers wear them”. This one is from an OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) website. As an example, in the UK, a baby isn’t allowed to leave hospital in a car unless the parents have a rear facing infant seat. There are no compromises.

The MIROS website stated that in 2007 there were 22.8 road fatalities per 100,000 population in Malaysia. That’s over four times that in the UK. Malaysia has about 17 million vehicles on its roads compared to circa 33 million on UK roads — twice the number of vehicles and four times less fatalities on UK roads.

Malaysians aren’t necessarily bad drivers, but are riddled with bad habits. They are definitely family loving people, yet there is a problem here: Malaysians persist in carrying children unrestrained in their cars, or as pillions on motorcycles without helmets or babies in the arms of wives and maids while being driven.

However good a driver you are, if you are distracted by your child acting up in the back seat, and immediately ahead of you a car unexpectedly pulls out, or a tyre blows out on a poorly maintained vehicle, or a motorcyclist does an odd move; think what happens when the driver does a sudden stop at 50 km/hr.

The cost of a car seat might be RM800 and lasts for at least 10 years or more. The cost of a crash helmet is less than RM100.

Think about it when you next buy a washing machine or fridge or TV set or anything luxurious.

LAURENTIA,

Kuala Lumpur.