PETALING JAYA: Former transport minister Loke Siew Fook has lambasted his successor Wee Ka Siong for using drink-driving related accident figures at an international conference to say that road safety in Malaysia has improved.
The DAP secretary-general said he was also “disgusted” that Wee was claiming sole credit for something that the former Pakatan Harapan government had started in January 2020.
Loke said he was not downplaying the issue of driving under the influence of alcohol but pointed out that PH had already made a Cabinet decision in January 2020 when it was in power to toughen the penalties related to such incidents.
“But before we could table it in Parliament, the Sheraton Move happened and the PH government fell. The subsequent government just followed through to pass the amendments.
“As usual, Wee wants to claim credit for this,” he told FMT.
Loke added that the police, too, had contributed towards the move to toughen the penalties for cases involving driving under the influence of alcohol well before Wee took over as transport minister.
He said instead of focusing on road accidents and deaths involving motorcyclists which were increasing, Wee chose to focus on drink-driving which represented only 5% of the total number of road accidents in the country.
“The number of road deaths is ever increasing, especially those involving motorcycles and heavy vehicles. The average daily death toll is back to the pre-pandemic level of 18 to 19.
“I am surprised to hear him say all this at a global conference. He is basically blinded by just one aspect of the whole picture and not talking of other crucial aspects that matter,” he said.
Yesterday, Wee, who was speaking at the multi-stakeholder panel of the United Nations (UN) High-Level Meeting (HLM) on road safety in New York, said Malaysia has been successful in reducing the number of road crashes related to alcohol or drugs consumption because of the government’s political will in the past two years.
He said having such political will was a huge factor in helping to reduce road tragedies since the pandemic era started.
Loke chided Wee for his comments and advised him not to use road safety as political capital as there was still a lot of work to be done to improve road safety in the country.
“The most urgent aspect is to help motorcyclists protect their lives, especially with the number of delivery riders increasing rapidly,” Loke said.
He added that a recent international report said Malaysian roads were among the most unsafe in the world. - FMT
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