Group looks to Loke to solve issues faced by Sarawak driving school operators
KOTA SAMARAHAN: A group of driving school owners from Sarawak who recently visited Transport Minister Anthony Loke has sought to highlight several suggestions made to the minister to solve problems faced by operators in Sarawak.
Group leader Sim Kim Hua said among their suggestions are issues such as the driver education curriculum ( KPP); One community One JPJ ( SKSJ) system; practice test using Edriving system testing circuit at driving institutes; renewal of the institute’s driving permit based on the scoring rating achieved by the driving institute (grading system); ceiling prices for driving and learning fees introduced by the Road Transport Department (JPJ) for class D, DA, B2 licences; and many more.
“We Sarawak operators have asked Loke not to implement the e- driving test system in Sarawak as it requires a high spending cost to install an e- driving test, while the population here in Sarawak is not as many compared to Peninsular Malaysia.
“We believe that the system will directly impede driving institute operators and those applying for a driving licence in Sarawak because the living standards in Sarawak are low,” he said when met at Konsortium Memandu Kota Samarahan yesterday.
In other words, Sim said he is worried that the fee to obtain driving licences might increase for Sarawakians if the system is implemented in Sarawak.
Apart from that, he also said they had requested the KPP books not to use serial numbers so that the books can be used by more than one person, such as members of a family, to ease the burden of parents.
In addition, he recommends that candidates who already have driving licences for car ( D, DA) or motorcycle ( B2) to not have to sit for the computerised test again if they want to add other driving licence class.
“We operators in Sarawak also discussed the issue of setting a ceiling price for those who want to obtain class D, DA, and B2 licences announced by the JPJ.
“We want the minister to consider our request to let the cost of study fees be justified by Sarawak- owned operators while cooperating with the state JPJ to create a more cost- effective fee for driving institutes in Sarawak.”
Apart from that, Sim hopes that Loke would look into providing Mandarin and Tamil computerised road rules test facilities in Sarawak as well.
He also revealed that he and several other driving institute owners are in the process of setting- up an association to safeguard the interest of driving institutes in Sarawak.