GENTING
HIGHLANDS: The Road Safety Council (MKJR) of Malacca has proposed driving
licence holders who are 50 years old and above should undergo health screening
as part of the measures to curb unsafe driving.
The
motion was tabled this morning by Malacca's MKJR secretary Ghafar Misdar at the
57th annual general meeting of the National Road Safety Council held at Awana
Genting, which was attended by over 350 delegates nationwide.
In an
immediate response, Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Aziz Kaprawi, while
agreeing there should be such a safety programme for older drivers, said
"ideally it should start from 65, maybe for a start we can do a test for
eyesight."
"Fifty
years old is too young. This proposal for older drivers needs to be studied
carefully. At the ministry level, it can be considered but we need to get
(feedback from) all stakeholders before we can make a decision," he told
theSun.
Following
the recent policy by Malaysian Motor Insurance Pool (MMIP) of not providing
insurance coverage to commercial vehicle drivers above 65, Aziz said the MMIP
move could pave the way for a specific programme for older drivers.
"The
MMIP move was a cue for the authorities to have a thorough discussion about a
future policy for drivers consisting of senior citizens," he said.
Stating
that Malaysia should adopt the practice of health screening for older drivers
similar to that in developed countries, Ghafar said the suggestion was timely
given the over-representation of drivers among senior citizens emerging lately
and which would continue to rise in the foreseeable future.
"No
disrespect to older drivers with long experience in driving but this is an
important proposal because they seem to be at higher risk of collisions because
of functional impairments," he told theSun after the AGM.
He said
the health screening could be the yardstick to determine the capability of
older drivers in view of many health symptoms often related to ageing people
such as diabetes, high blood pressure, eyesight limitation, kidney problem and
other non-communicable diseases.
In
addition, Malacca MKJR also proposed that urine tests be conducted for new
driving licence holders.
"There
are two risky groups on the road – the young drivers especially motorcyclists
because of their risky driving behaviour, and older drivers with their greater
physical frailty and vulnerability to injury when involved in a
collision," Ghafar added.
After a
lengthy debate among the delegates, the proposal for mandatory health screening
for older drivers was rejected by the AGM.
The
National Council then requested Malacca MKJR to fine tune the suggestion to be
discussed in next year's AGM.
However,
the National MKJR has accepted the urine test proposal for new licence holders
and it will be brought up to the Transport Ministry for consideration.
Last
week, an 86-year-old driver and his foreign maid escaped injuries after a car
they were in plunged into a construction hole of a sewerage project in Petaling
Jaya.
It was
speculated that the driver was unable to spot the plastic barricade near the
hole and couldn't respond swiftly before veering into the 10m-deep hole.
Shahrim
Tamrin
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