Road Safety Council To Start Safe School Zone Pilot Project - Loke

SEPANG, June 15 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian Road Safety Council will start a Safe School Zone pilot project at 14 schools in the country to benefit almost 20,000 pupils and staff.

Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook said the measure was taken after several recent fatal incidents involving students and statistics showing an average of 70 incidents occurring in school areas annually.

"This shows that the aspect of speed and road infrastructure management at most schools have not reached a satisfactory level,” he said in a speech before chairing the council’s 62nd annual  general meeting here today.

He said the intervention by the council through the pilot project includes focusing on reducing speed limits at school areas by improving infrastructure such as pedestrian light-controlled crossings and medians,” he said, adding that the project would be expanded to more schools with high risks of incidents.

“This requires the cooperation from all parties, especially the Education Ministry and every state’s education department to identify such schools, such as those at are beside or in front of federal roads,” he said.

Loke also urged companies to help make the project a success by sponsoring the project.

“A company could adopt five or ten schools a year. If this takes off, the project can be scaled up, meaning more schools will be protected under this initiative,” he said, adding that about RM300,000 was required for a school to implement the project.

Meanwhile, Loke said that the council will lead the development of a road safety index measuring the level of compliance and changes in road users at identified locations.

"In efforts to improve road safety intervention, the ability to make decisions based on data needs to be raised.

"All the while, the standard of achievement is focused on the number of deaths, but that is only a final indicator. We need a more dynamic approach through development of leading indicators to identify the risk levels, system vulnerabilities and the effectiveness of continued intervention,” he added.

-- BERNAMA