MALAYSIAN motorists, especially commercial vehicle operators, are notorious for violating traffic rules and ignoring the devastating ramifications.
Road Transport Department (RTD) senior enforcement director Datuk Lokman Jamaan has attested to this, saying that motorist awareness of and compliance with traffic rules and regulations is "low". That's putting it mildly. After inspecting 321,263 vehicles last month during Op Patuh Khas 2023 nationwide, the RTD issued 73,296 notices to offenders for various offences.
The tonne of paperwork was for overloading (4,515), technical offences (19,905), no valid driver's licence (11,813), no vocational licence (6,085), expired motor vehicle licence (9,947) and no insurance (6,626).
The RTD also impounded 705 vehicles, 16 for excessive overloading. No mention of the passenger bus business, but their disrepute is blackened by infamy. These numbers help explain why we keep registering record highway accidents and fatalities.
Do we need more proof that our belligerent commercial vehicle motorists are beyond redemption? That constant pleas to obey traffic rules and maintain vehicle roadworthiness are futile?
Nevertheless, Lokman still parroted the warning that the RTD would not compromise with violators, a refrain we've heard many times before. But now, they, and for that matter, the traffic police, must walk the talk by not toying with violators with more pleadings, coaxing, cajoling and warnings, all proven to be hopeless.
Commercial vehicle motorists behave as if they're idiot savants with their constant violations, making "raising awareness" counterproductive. Now's the time to seriously "wield the big stick" and start "beating up" violators who seem immune to traffic summonses, even vehicle impoundment.
Berating errant commercial vehicle operators since time immemorial has been a worthless strategy because violators simply pay their summonses and requisition another unworthy vehicle — the necessary price of doing business.
The highway freight transport commercial market will hover around RM100 billion this year, dominated by long-haulers — courier, express, parcel and e-commerce sectors are the main end users — handling solid goods for wholesale and retail. That market size explains why drivers prefer unroadworthy vehicles: the money is too big and too lucrative to abide by the law.
In bowing to the might of transport capitalism, somewhere and somehow in our sluggish administration system, something has obviously gone wrong. To redress this antipathy, the RTD must start punishing errant operators where it hurts: the flow of their moneymaking enterprise. When impounding commercial vehicles in bad shape, seize also the goods they carry and impose hefty penalties the size of the load's value.
Since fines are seen as trivial, impose jail time for errant drivers, compelling companies to maintain or replace their ageing fleets, while paying drivers decent wages and avoiding altercations with the law. But this requires strong political will and ethical enforcement.
Capitalism should not progress at the expense of dead highway users, killed by commercialism's dispassion and greed.
