The usual road fatalities during festive seasons have grabbed the headlines yet again. This has been the norm year in year out. This time it's the new PM who had also decided to cash in on the publicity.

I think there has to be a complete revamp of agencies responsible for road safety, from the Transport Ministry, Road Transport Department, Works Ministry and the Malaysian Police to the National Road Safety Council (and whoever else who would dare admit to their negligence).

That means clearing out the deadwood and ineffective officials, from bureaucrats to 'volunteers' like the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety chairperson Lee Lam Thye, who only seem to be good in hogging the headlines with one proclamation after another but doing virtually nothing else about reducing the fatalities.

Let us take a quick look at Australia's road statistics since 1953:

  • Road deaths per 10,000 vehicles in 1953: 10.1

  • Road deaths per 10,000 vehicles in 1973: 6.6

  • Road deaths per 10,000 vehicles in 1983: 3.2

  • Road deaths per 10,000 vehicles in 1993: 1.9

  • Road deaths per 10,000 vehicles in 2002: 1.4

Registered vehicles had increased from 1,800,000 in 1953 to 12,500,000 in 2002. Human population went from 8,800,000 to 19,400,000 in the same years.

Despite the overwhelming increase in vehicles/population on the roads over the 50 years, actual road deaths have decreased dramatically since 1973, from a peak of 3,679 to 1,725 in 2002.

It has been proven conclusively in the Australian experience that obsessive speed enforcement since the 1990s has not saved lives. Yet our Malaysian traffic police have been religiously conducting speed traps(the cynics would know the reason why straight away!).

Isn't anyone in authority all these years aware of the Australian experience? Why haven't the so-called experts and traffic consultants not used the Australian example to correct the situation here in Malaysia? Or is our Malaysian system, officials and drivers beyond education and redemption?

Millions of ringgit of government funds have been spent, so what gives? I hope the new PM will look into this national scandal.