SIBU: Employers have been urged to fulfil their moral obligations by adopting a proactive approach in managing occupational road risks to reduce accidents, injuries and fatalities.
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said yesterday employers needed to change the driving attitude and behaviour of their employees.
“Unless an organisation has a planned approach towards managing occupational road risks and is monitoring what it is doing, more accidents will occur and more innocent lives lost on our roads,” said Lee in a press statement.
Employers must ensure the use of safe vehicles, provide driver training to prevent road accidents and ensure that drivers with bad records are kept away from the wheels, he added.
“And in helping to meet the national road safety target, bringing Malaysia’s road fatality rate down by 40 per cent within the next five years and helping to reduce the current rate of 4.9 deaths per 10,000 vehicles to three deaths per 10,000 vehicles by 2010 and two deaths per 10,000 vehicles by the year 2020, employers should do all that is reasonably practicable not only to ensure road safety of their employees but also that of passengers and the public,” he stressed.
Lee, who is also a member of the Road Safety Council, was responding to the latest road tragedy at the North-South Expressway near the Negeri Sembilan / Malacca Border which killed 12 people and injured about 40 others, adding that this was a setback in the nation’s efforts to reduce road accidents.
Offering his deepest condolences to the families of the deceased, he stressed: “Employers also have a duty to protect their employees and other road users by adopting the approach of managing road risk in order to control the very significant business losses which arise from ‘at work’ road accidents, including not only direct accident costs but also lost staff time, higher insurance premiums and poor public image.”
Lee pointed out that no business could afford to leave the safety performance of its vehicle fleet to chance, adding that both money and lives could be at stake.
For that, he emphasised that every journey should be a managed journey, not something to be treated casually or left to chance.
As expected the necessary investigations are being carried out to determine the cause of the tragedy, he said.
But, he expressed concern on whether public transport operators and others ever learned from the lesson of previous road tragedies to prevent further loss of lives and injuries.
“At a time when the relevant authorities are addressing with utmost seriousness the issue of road safety to reduce road accidents, injuries and fatalities, employers have a moral obligation to adopt a proactive approach in managing occupational road risk.
“This is because companies which take action to promote occupational safety and prevent accidents will achieve major cost savings, improve their image and make a significant contribution to meeting road safety targets,” he noted.