Be it for cultural, social, or religious obligations, the public loves to balik kampung during festivals or long holidays. Highway traffic intensifies and becomes busier, but unfortunately, the festive mood ends abruptly for many due to unexpected road incidents.
The increase in road incidents during festive seasons necessitates special road safety operations conducted by the Royal Malaysia Police, such
as Op Sikap.
Since 2001, Op Sikap has been in force in collaboration with the Fire and Rescue Department, the Civil Defence Force, the Health Ministry, St John's Ambulance Malaysia, the Road Transport Department, the Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board, and the National Anti-Drug Agency.
Sadly, road accidents are also common on regular days.
On average, a life is lost every 80 minutes on the road due to an accident - totalling 6,000 deaths annually.
In 2016, Malaysian roads recorded 7,152 deaths. However, there was a reasonable decrease to 6,284 deaths in 2018, and an average of 4,500 deaths was reported during the Movement Control Order period (2020 to 2021).
This article is written by Professor Dr. Mohammad Tariqur Rahman who works at the Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences in the Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Malaya.
Read further on the The Sun's article attached.
