The Ministry of Transport is considering a proposal to establish the Malaysian Transportation Safety Board (MTSB), a dedicated body tasked to investigate road accidents in the country, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in the Dewan Rakyat today.
As reported by Bernama, Loke said that the proposal came from recommendations from a special task force set up to investigate two recent tragedies — the fatal accident involving members of the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) in Teluk Intan, and the tour bus crash in Gerik, Perak, that claimed the lives of 15 Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) students.
While the proposal is currently being considered at a ministerial level, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said that the ministry will be establishing initiatives to make driving as a profession more appealing. This includes training programmes to produce more competent and professional drivers.
“We want to work together to train more professional drivers. The ministry has several planned actions to uplift the status of this profession… we want drivers to be respected and social status to be elevated,” said Loke.
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He mentioned that the nation is currently facing a shortage of bus and lorry drivers due to a lack of interest from low wages, adding that the ministry is currently taking action to ensure that drivers are fairly compensated in line with their working hours, workload, and the risks they encounter.
“However, we must not assume that just anyone, even those with criminal records or poor driving histories, can be hired as drivers. We are currently working on a database to identify individuals with past offences, especially those involving dangerous driving, so that they can be filtered out,” he added.
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