MIROS Urges Malaysians To Use The Rear Seat Belts

Plans on campaign rebooting to instil awareness into the public about the importance of using seat belts is the current move for the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety (MIROS).

The campaign reboot by MIROS will be focusing more towards the importance of the rear seat belt usage. Along with a strategic plan created by the institute that will be implemented in stages, starting from the school level to public and to private agencies.

Reported by Bernama, MIROS’ chairman Datuk Suret Singh states, “Despite of the regulations having been put into motion ever since 2009, the institute finds that only 11 percent of the overall Malaysian road users wear the rear seat belts.”

Based on the rate of compliance, embedding of rear seat belt usage importance will be the forefront of the strategic plan, in which it is to instruct and improve the awareness level through various means of the aforementioned stages.

Joining MIROS, in an effort to maximise the rate of success are two other government entities, Ministry of Transport (MOT) and Road Transport Department (JPJ). With this, MIROS’ chairman is optimistic about being able to reach a 95 percent compliance rate by the year 2022.

Initially the plan was approved by the board of directors at MIROS but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, its implementation that was meant to begin in 2020 which stretches out to 2022, was deferred.

“According to studies, if the driver and passengers in a vehicle are involved in a road accident, the risk of death can be reduced by 50 percent with airbags and this increases to 80 percent if used together with safety belts,” he further commented. 

Also, for government officers, the usage of safety belts has been made compulsory when riding in government-owned vehicles, through a motion that was signed by the government’s chief secretary Tan Sri Mohd Zuki Ali, on November 1st, 2020. 

MIROS’ chairman concludes, “In the plan, we will turn the highest government officials into role models because it is the aspiration of the chief secretary to the government.”

On another note, a particular law under the 2008 amendment was enforced on January 1st, 2009. It states that those found guilty of violating the law of Motor Vehicles Rules (Seat belt) can either be fined up to RM 1,000 or a jail term of up to one year, or both.