MIRI: Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) secretary-general Datuk Sebastian Ting has described the call from Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) for Putrajaya to suspend the production and sale of alcohol to curb drink driving as an extreme one, and uncalled for, in a multi-racial country like Malaysia.
“Again, PAS has been insensitive and attempt to instill their ideology by forcing Malaysians to take on their stand without a thought for other races,” Ting opined.
“The Islamist party has asked for the Perikatan Nasional government to set up a special Cabinet committee comprising a few ministries to tackle the problem, and before anything was discussed, suggested to the Customs Department and local councils to suspend the issuance of licences to sell alcohol and stop its sale at 24-hour convenience stores,” he added.
PAS’ statement had set off a flurry of protests from right minded Malaysians as they are looking at things from a micro point of view, he said.
“First, they should ask themselves how many fatalities are caused by drunk drivers…Yes, I do agree that there are some but from the traffic police statistics released annually, the highest cause of fatal accidents was not due to drunk driving but human error. In Sarawak, car drivers are not the top of the list in fatality but motorcyclists. Do we need to ban motorcycles now?” Ting countered.
“Drunk driving occurs everywhere in the world; does it mean that alcohol has to be banned totally to solve fatality on the roads?”
“There are already laws enacted to deal with drunk drivers and these are not lenient. We cannot solve problems by banning when an issue crops up. Our most frequent crimes are house breaking and theft all over the nation, especially on landed properties. Do we have to ban people from staying on landed properties but move them all to apartments?” Ting questioned.
He said PAS should not issue a statement without taking into consideration things from various angles.
“Our traffic police do take action by going after drunk drivers in Ops Mabok. These offenders were charged in court and some faced jail sentence. So, they should not say that the law is light.”
“Like many other crimes, drunk driving is just one of them, there are many who drink moderately to have some fun time with friends or over business negotiations.
“We can look into ways to find a solution to this problem. Banning is not the answer that solves all. The councils can contact night entertainment joints to see how the operators can help out by ensuring that their patrons do not drive home drunk,” he said.
“In advanced countries, there are pub operators who helped call cabs for drunk customers. For those who drink in groups, they can be asked to ensure that one of their friends do not drink to stay sober.”
Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong has stated that a proposed amendment be made to tighten the laws so PAS should wait out for this instead of calling for a ban.
“Currently, if you are caught for drink driving, you can be fined up to RM6,000 and imprisonment for up to 12 months,” he said.
Ting believed that the government should look into doubling the fine and jail time as a deterrence.
“Education campaign also plays an important role to make the people aware of the serious drunk driving issue and the devastating consequences of drunk driving towards their loved ones and the others using the road,” he said.
“More efforts have to be made to set up school-based programmes to instill the culture of responsible drinking and safe driving attitude to students to decrease alcohol related driving accidents and fatalities among young drivers.
“It is time for us to consider lowering the blood alcohol content (BAC) of the prescribed limit from the current 0.08 per cent to 0.05 per cent, most countries are enforcing BAC of 0.05 per cent, It is better to be safe then to regret later,” Ting said.
“More importantly, the key thing for the law to be effective is that we must have more enforcement.
“More police officers setting up more random breath test checkpoints to test drivers for alcohol and drugs,” Ting stressed.
