Liow (centre) witnesses the exchange of sponsorship agreement documents between Shell Malaysia managing director Datuk Azman Ismail (left) and director-general of Miros Professor Dr Wong Shaw Voon. — Bernama photo
KUALA LUMPUR: Over 80.6 per cent of road accidents in the country are caused by human error, says Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
He said data from the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) showed that only 19.4 per cent of the accidents resulted from road and vehicle conditions.
He described it to be worrying trends, seeing the people continue to be negligent.
“Reckless driving, speeding, inattentiveness, driving under the influence of alcohol and driving when tired are primary causes that bring harm to oneself and motorists on the road,” Liow said at the launch of the SAFE STEPS Road Safety Campaign 2016 here yesterday.
He said even though the government and its agencies had initiated various road safety campaigns, the number of road accidents continued to increase.
For example in 2015, there were 489,606 accidents as compared to 476,196 in 2014.
Of these, Liow said the death toll rate caused by road accidents had also increased to a total of 6,706 in 2015, translating to roughly 18 deaths daily from road accidents alone.
Over the past 10 years, motorcyclists have by far, been the highest casualties at 39,744 deaths. Malaysia is the first among Asean member countries to have launched the SAFE STEPS campaign.
The SAFE STEPS campaign is jointly organised by Prudential Corporation Asia, Federation International de l’Automobile (FIA) and National Geographic Channel.
Also present at the launch were Prudence Foundation chairman Donald Kanak, United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety and FIA President Datuk Jean Todt and SAFE STEPS Road Safety Ambassador Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh.
The campaign seeks to raise awareness on the world’s leading causes of death, and provide clear and simple life-saving information through the dissemination of educational messages on road safety.
The educational messages will be aired on 17 FOX Networks Group Asia channels, beginning yesterday and are available in nine local languages including Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Burmese and Cantonese. — Bernama