Take action against these drivers, police urged
KUCHING: The police are urged to take action against drivers of heavy vehicles for parking by the roadside near the Tapah Bazaar junction about 35km from here.
According to a complainant, the illegally parked vehicles were obstructing the view of drivers coming from Kuching.
“Eight fatal accidents have occurred near the junction last year alone. Last month, a 52-yearold father- of- four known only as Lee and his 51-year- old wife Ceri Luwin, were killed when the motorcycle they were riding collided with a Toyota Hilux at the junction,” a businessman Clement Bong told The Borneo Post yesterday.
Another victim, Mathew Suleng from Serian, who broke his leg, recollected that he lost control of his car and skidded into a three- metre deep drain after trying to avoid knocking into a lorry coming out of the junction.
“I almost collided with the lorry as the junction was not visible. The junction was blocked by three or four gravel-laden trucks parked by the roadside,” he said.
A community leader from Padawan who lost a daughter on Christmas eve last year after the car she was driving collided with another car making an illegal U-turn at the same junction said he had complained to the police about the traffic violators at the 100- metre stretch but accidents continued to happen.
A police source, meanwhile, said that a ‘ high- mast video surveillance’ operation carried out about 150 metres from the accident prone stretch last year showed that many motorists attempted illegal U-turns at the junction.
The proposal to introduce speed and high- resolution cameras on that stretch of road and at the junction was rejected after surveys showed they were not needed.