Number of fatal accidents in S’wak worrying – Police chief
KUCHING: The increasing number of fatal road accidents in Sarawak should be a cause for concern to all, says outgoing Sarawak commissioner of police Datuk Ramli Din.
He points out that despite numerous road safety campaigns and reminders by the authorities, the number of road accidents in the country, including in Sarawak, keeps increasing every year.
Nevertheless, he commends the police and other government agencies like the Road Transport Department (JPJ), National Road Safety Council, Social Security Organisation ( Socso) and nongovernment organisations (NGO) for their efforts in preventing and reducing accidents.
“Various road safety campaigns have been and are being organised, not only by the police and JPJ, but also by agencies and NGOs; yet, it seems that all our initiatives have been fruitless,” he spoke at the closing of a ‘Road Safety Awareness Campaign’ here yesterday, organised by Socso and run by Kuching South City Council (MBKS).
Ramli said aside from campaigns, many summonses had also been issued by the police and the JPJ.
“(Issuing) summonses is a way to reduce road accidents, to educate road users and the public, but even such deterrence has not been effective.
“We run ‘Ops Selamat’ during every festive season. Recently, we launched our 16th Ops Selamat and in Sarawak alone, the death toll has reached 20, compared with last year, which recorded 15 deaths,” he said.
Still, Ramli said despite the police having stationed their personnel at all 56 accident-prone areas across Sarawak during ‘Ops Selamat’, the number of accidents continued to increase.
Socso chief executive officer Datuk Seri Mohammed Azman Aziz and mayor of Kuching South Datuk Wee Hong Seng were also present.