Press Statement

by Lim Guan Eng

(Petaling Jaya, Thursday): Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy can only impress the Transport Ministry that he is serious about bringing down the road fatality rate by 2010 by declaring that he will resign as Transport Minister if he fails. As Chan will be the next President of MCA, he should still be Transport Minister in 2010 and beyond.

The United Nations has ranked Malaysia 30th among countries with the highest number of fatal road accidents, registering an average of 4.5 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles. Chan had announced a 5 year plan to bring the fatality rate down by 2010 to 2 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles.

It is true that the high road accident fatality rate is due to the large number of motorcycles on Malaysian roads, at 60 per cent of the total registered vehicles. He denied a Hong Kong newspaper report that KL has 194 deaths per one million is the worst city in the world in terms of road fatalities. Chan claimed that it is actually 148 deaths per million for Kuala Lumpur or for the whole country an average of 4.5 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles.

The figures for KL at 148 deaths per million or 4.5 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles is still excessively high when we are talking about nearly 6,500 deaths from road accidents yearly. The latest tragic bus accident in Juru on the North-South Highway where 11 pilgrims to the St Anne’s feast in Bukit Mertajam died is only one example of the failure of road safety campaign by both his Ministry and relevant departments.

Unless the government plays its part, the target to reduce traffic fatalities from the current 4.5 deaths per 100,000 vehicles to 2 from 2006 to 2010 will remain another broken promise. To ensure that the government is serious this time and not gambling with people’s lives, Chan should announce his willingness to resign as Transport Minister should this not be achieved by 2010.

(10/08/2006)