Gerakan wants heavy punishment against public bus companies or operators when their drivers and buses are involved in 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 first level of scrutiny to prevent or reduce accidents would be the bus companies or operators.

He said they must take full responsibility to what happened to their buses and drivers involved in accidents which caused lives and injuries.

“They form 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 involved in drug-abuse,” said Dr Ng in a statement.

Dr Ng, who is also Ketari State Assemblyman, said it could be assumed that the employers had interviewed the drivers for the job.

“Over the years and in the past few months, 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.

Dr Ng 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 that 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.

Ng said Gerakan agreed with Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi who said on Sunday that he proposed to table an emergency motion at the current Dewan Rakyat sitting, calling for heavy sentence on bus drivers who caused the death of passengers.

“I am all for an emergency motion to show we are serious. The punishment meted out must be fair,” said Dr Mohd Puad, when commenting on the bus accident at Genting Sempah on Friday, which killed seven people.