The police could give some discounts for those who genuinely could not afford to pay rather than using extreme method to put people in jail or being served with warrants of arrest.
Simon Wong, Sarawak Entrepreneurs Association (SEA) chairman
KUCHING: A random survey conducted yesterday revealed mixed reaction over the issuance of warrants of arrest to traffic offenders when ‘Ops Warta’ comes into force starting next month.
The police will be going after hundreds of thousands of hardcore traffic offenders when they kick off Ops Warta next month, Bukit Aman traffic chief SAC Datuk Mohd Fuad Abdul Latiff, said in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, adding they had not forgotten traffic offenders who had outstanding warrants of arrest.
A private sector employee going by the name of Tan Sri, who is in his late 30s, questioned if the move was appropriate because the traffic police could still work together with Road Transport Department to make traffic offenders settle their summonses when they renewed their road tax.
He said this would save a lot of time as they did not have to go door-to-door to serve warrants of arrest to the traffic offenders.
“I am also wondering what will happen if these traffic offenders still fail to settle their summonses after being served warrants of arrest, simply because they don’t have the money to settle them.
“Will they go to jail? Does going to jail justify their summonses? Do they still have to settle their summonses after serving the jail sentence? If I have a summons and I really can’t afford to pay and have no other ways to settle it, I am willing to be jailed to ‘settle’ it,” he said.
Sarawak Entrepreneurs Association (SEA) chairman Simon Wong, meanwhile, said the payment of summons was a citizen’s responsibility and should be paid on time.
“The police could give some discounts for those who genuinely could not afford to pay rather than using extreme method to put people in jail or being served with warrants of arrest.
“The pro for this action is that people will be more serious to arrange for payment with strict law enforcement while the con is that the people will not be happy as they will see this as a ridiculous movement.
A 34-year-old businessman, Dick Chew, felt it was not necessary for warrants of arrest to be issued believing that there were better ways to make traffic offenders pay their summonses.
“Going to the people’s house to serve them warrants of arrest may traumatise their family members especially the elderly as they would think that their son, or daughter, or grand child or a relative has done something terribly wrong and is a criminal on the run.
“It may also traumatise the young children of the offenders who are at home thinking that their parents had committed a crime.”
Chew said perhaps one of the ways for traffic offenders to settle their summonses was not to be able to renew their driving licence or road tax until they have settled their summonses, like vehicle owners not able to renew their road tax if they did not renew their insurance.
A 40-year-old administrative clerk, who only wished to be known as Cindy Tan, said the move (issuance of warrants of arrest) was appropriate against those who flatly refused to settle their summonses.
It might even make them to strictly comply with the traffic rules in future after having learnt their lesson.
However, she said there might be many ‘innocent’ traffic offenders out there who simply had no idea they had the summonses because notices and even summonses never reached them due to incorrect address or other reasons.
“I had a summons issued against me before but I did not know about it until a friend told me to just check in the website.
“I was surprised to see I have two summonses. One was for exceeding the speed limit along Kuching-Serian road. I quickly settled the summonses because I did not want to be black-listed. If I did not check, then maybe I would be one of those receiving a warrant of arrest,” she said.
According to Mohd Fuad, 2.49 million out of the 4.09 million warrants of arrests had already been settled and they were now looking at the remaining 39 per cent (1.59 million).
The traffic police had in 2008 embarked on a door-to-door operation to serve warrants of arrest to traffic offenders under Ops Warta.
In 2013, police targeted over 251,000 errant motorists, heavy vehicle drivers and motorcyclists in the first stage of Ops Cantas Trafik.
Notices were sent out to the offenders, warning them that warrants of arrest had been issued against them.
Bukit Aman had also worked together with the EPF (Employees Provident Fund) and National Registration Department to check the addresses of traffic offenders.
Mohd Fuad said multiple warnings had already been given over the past two years, but the remaining offenders were stubborn and refused to settle their summonses.
He said in the first three months of this year, the police had issued 880,914 summonses.
From the number 9,119 were issued for misuse of emergency lane while 69,629 summonses were issued for cutting the queue.
Vehicle owners could check if they have outstanding summonses at www.myeg.com.my and www.rilek.com.my