Set up agency to enhance transport safety standards
IT’S time that a transport safety agency is established in Malaysia in keeping with the expanding transport sector and the Government’s aspiration for the highest standards in transportation safety.
Consultation with various stakeholders, including Government agencies within and outside of the transport sector and professional organisations, would be a vital part of the process in establishing this safety board.
The objectives of the board would be to conduct training, research and independent investigations into transport crashes, share inter-agency expertise in crash investigations and to report to the public.
As the objective of the board is to promote safety, the cardinal principles for independent investigation into crashes (and critical incidents) are non-contestability of the reports in a court of law and not apportioning blame/determining liability for punitive action.
In the United States, the National Transportation Safety Board Disaster Assistance Division takes on the additional responsibility of coordinating support for families of transportation disaster victims.
As regards its organisational structure, since it is an independent board, it should consist of “technical” rather than “administrative” members, and a registry of experienced transport safety professionals who could be co-opted for investigations at short notice could be maintained.
The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) could be restructured and turned into the Transportation Safety Research Institute to investigate all modal transport crashes (and critical incidents).
With its cross-disciplinary expertise, sharing of experience among different transport modes, and close collaboration with universities, this research institute would bring many intangible safety benefits to the transport sector as we head for developed nation status.
Miros (with its crash investigation and reconstruction expertise) is best suited to undertake these additional responsibilities.
The proposed Transport Research Institute is ideally suited to act as the secretariat for the National Transportation Safety Board.
The main impediments to the establishment of such a board and institute are the relative dearth of cross-disciplinary sharing of safety expertise, “turf ” issues in investigation of crashes, and absence of a mechanism for public reporting of crash investigations.
These can be overcome by sincere discussions among the stakeholders and adequate training.
The process of setting up the proposed board and institute requires a complete review of our existing transport safety investigation mechanisms.
While waiting for the due formal processes, the preparation of a register of experienced transport safety professionals could be initiated at the very least.
PROF DR KRISHNAN RAJAM Head, Department of Family Medicine RCSI UCD Malaysia Campus, Penang