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A National Road Safety Plan should be formulated to reduce the number of accidents, injuries and deaths on Malaysian roads   Press Statement by John Chung (Petaling Jaya, Wednesday): The tragic bus collision at the Kuala Lipis-Merapoh trunk road which claimed  14 lives and left scores of other passengers wounded had focused public attention on the serious need to tackle the growing problem of careless driving and reduce the number of accidents, injuries and deaths on Malaysian roads. Despite various road safety campaigns carried out by the authorities to create awareness of driving safely, road accidents resulting in fatalities are still on the rise instead of declining, raising the question whether the campaigns carried out thus far have been effective. Any successful road safety campaign must address the root causes of road accidents and aim at changing the driving behaviour of motorists. It must be continually evaluated to assess its influence on people's attitudes to road safety, their behaviour on the roads and, ultimately, its effectiveness in helping to bring down the numbers of deaths and injuries. The various causes of road accidents must be addressed since they are many, ranging from drink-driving, speeding, not wearing safety belts, talking on the handphone while driving to even simple driving errors, such as not giving way, not stopping and not keeping to the left. Undeniably, road safety campaigns are only part of the solution. To fully deal with the problem, a national road safety plan which is multi-pronged should be formulated by the government to demonstrate its seriousness to deal with the situation. Such a plan should incorporate stiffer penalties, increased law enforcement as well as awareness campaigns, supported by hard hitting and high profile advertisements targeted at drivers of various age-groups and aimed at educating and improving their driving attitude. (3/12/2003) * John Chung, DAP National Publicity Bureau Assistant Secretary