Gerakan has reiterated its call to the government to intensify enforcement of road safety laws and to impose heavy punishment against public service bus operators and drivers to help reduce road accidents that caused deaths and serious injuries.

Gerakan’s head of central bureau on public health and social development, Datuk Dr Ng Keong Chye, said the bus companies or operators should ensure that their vehicles are road worthiness and only careful and responsible drivers are engaged.

Dr Ng, who is also Pahang Ketari State Assemblyman, believed that a severe punishment would be a deterrent to prevent loss of lives and injuries.

“Prevention is always better than cure. Don’t wait for tragedies to occur and keep on saying there will be an investigation to ascertain the cause of accident when lives have already been lost. We should learn from other countries where road accidents rates are comparably low because of strict road safety laws and enforcement,” Ng said in a statement.

Ng said Gerakan would like to extend its condolences to the families and relatives of the 27 people who were killed when their tour bus hit a divider at the Cameron-Highland Simpang Pulai Road in Ipoh on Monday.

The double-decker bus, with its upper deck sheared off, was a wreck as it ended up inside a ditch. The impact was so huge that 22 of the victims died on the spot, with the bus tyres and the passengers’ belongings strewn all over.

Ng lamented that since 2003 until Monday, 11 other fatal road accidents involving public service buses had occurred.“We have seen too many fatal accidents occurring in our roads and the people are losing confidence in taking public transport. It is useless to keep on pointing accusing fingers when lives and limbs are already lost,” he added.

Ng said bus operators are the first line of defence as they hire the drivers and the buses belong to them. “They are responsible for the maintenance of the buses and the character of their drivers, for instance, whether the drivers have a valid driving licence, are disciplined or are drug addicts,” said Dr Ng.

Dr Ng said it could also be assumed that the employers had interviewed the drivers for the job and those who frequently flout traffic rules including speeding should not be employed at all.

He said the present set of laws dealing with such cases seemed to be too lenient and some sections of the Road Transport Act should be amended to enhance sentence and penalty.

He said for example, under the Road Transport Act 1987 (Section 56 (1) Vocational Licences), it is stated that no person shall drive or act as a conductor of a public service vehicle on a road unless he holds a vocational licence granted under this Part for those purposes, and no registered owner of a public service vehicle or other person shall employ or permit any person who is not licensed to drive or act as a conductor of a public service vehicle while it is being used for the carriage of passengers for hire or reward on a road.

If any person acts in contravention of this subsection (1), he shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding two thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.

On Oct 29, six secondary school students were killed and 17 others seriously injured when a chartered bus skidded and hit a divider before landing on its side on the Genting slip road about 300m from the Karak Highway.