Make motorcycle lanes safe and conducive — Lee

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KUALA LUMPUR: National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye is urging the relevant committee under the Works Ministry to improve the conditions of the special motorcycle lanes along highways to make them safe and conducive for motorcyclists and their pillion riders.

This is because motorcyclists and pillion riders make up about 70 per cent of road accident fatalities in the country each year.

Lee said the lack of maintenance of the special motorcycle lanes had resulted in motorcyclists avoiding these lanes and using the highways instead, which increased their risk to road accidents.

“Based on the information that I gathered from the motorcyclists met, the  poorly maintained motorcycle lanes are not that safe.

“The motorcycle lanes along the Federal Highway, for instance, have dangerous corners, potholes and puddles of water, and are often flooded when it  rains. The tunnels are dark while the motorcycle lane users are disturbed by bad hats at certain times,” he noted.

Works Minister Datuk Fadillah Yusuf announced recently that the ministry would set up a special task force to study the concerns over the safety and other problems pertaining to the special motorcycle lanes before coming up with the best solutions.

Lee said it was of great concern that more than 6,000 people in the country perished in road accidents each year in the last few years, which could be translated into 18 to 20 deaths each day from road accidents.

He said that according to the Social Security Organisation (Socso), each day  there were three fatal accidents involving workers and two of these happened on the road while the workers were travelling to their workplace or returning home.

He noted that in 2006, there were 17,704 accidents involving workers, in 2007 (17,682), 2008 (19,041), 2009 (20,810), 2010 (22,036), 2011 (24,089) and 2012 (25,616). — Bernama