420 road deaths in Sabah last year
KOTA KINABALU: A total of 17,438 road accidents were recorded in Sabah last year, with 420 deaths, according to Bukit Aman Traffic, which means at least one death on the road per day on average.
Deputy Chief Minister, Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan said that even though the accident rate in Sabah is considered manageable, Sabahans should not be comfortable with the number.
“We cannot deny that the number of vehicles is increasing, but this should not be an excuse why the number of road accidents increase every year.
We must put in effort to minimize the risk of road accidents by multiplying the number of road safety awareness programmes for the community,” he said at the Statelevel World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims ceremony held at Universiti Malaysia Sabah here yesterday.
In his speech, which was read by Sabah Road Safety Department Director Herdiansah Abdul Karim, Pairin also mentioned that 65,850 deaths caused by road accidents were recorded from 2004 to 2013, which have caused Malaysia to suffer losses of approximately RM79 billion.
In 2013, he said 6,915 people died nationwide resulting in losses of RM8.3 billion.
“This means that 18 to 19 people die of road accidents in Malaysia each day,” said Pairin, who is also the Chairperson for the ceremony.
The Infrastructure Development Minister then stated that other than targetting to reduce deaths caused by road accidents by 50% by the year 2020, the Government is also out to achieve reduction based on deaths index to two deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles; ten deaths per 100,000 population and ten deaths for every 1 billion vehicle kilometer travelled.
This Road Safety Plan for Malaysia 2014-2020 was launched by Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai on November 2.
Meanwhile, Herdiansah told a press conference after the ceremony that the event was held in UMS as youngsters are the target group for the programme since victims of road accidents are mostly youths aged 15 to 29.
The ceremony also saw Road Safety Department Ambassador, Fariz A. Rani who shared his experiences with the attendees on how he ended up on a wheelchair.
Fariz who lost his ability to walk in a road accident stressed that every decision on safety must not be taken for granted, as one careless mistake could change one’s whole life.
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, which falls on the third Sunday of November, was held for the first time in Sabah this year.
The t heme for this year’s ceremony was: From Global Remembrance to Global Action Across the Decade, Speed KillsDesign Out Speeding, in which the day was also meant for the people to remember the lives lost caused by road accidents, as a lesson to be learnt.