Stop giving discounts for traffic summonses, say road safety experts

While some of us enjoy the discounts given by authorities for traffic summonses, others simply think it's a bad idea as they believe that no one will respect the law due to these leeways. 

According to a report in Free Malaysia Today, a couple of road safety experts are urging the government to stop offering discounts for traffic summonses, saying that it will only make drivers disregard traffic laws.

Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Law Teik Hua, who is central to the University's road safety research centre said the “culture” of offering discounts for summonses impacts law enforcement.

“No one is going to respect the law if they know that, at the end of the day, the government will give a discount,” he told FMT.

What's even more worrying is that Law is saying that the government is using the summonses as a way to earn revenue rather than penalise drivers who break traffic laws. 

He said, summonses were supposed to be hard on offenders to deter them from breaking the law. He is also asking questions to why there is barely any enforcement on the demerit system currently in place.

"The “pain” of having one’s driver’s licence suspended or even revoked would serve as a good deterrent against committing traffic offences".

Meanwhile, Tengku Ahmad Marwan Tengku Mahmud, road safety affiliate with the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) has also agreed with Law's opinion and said that no developed countries offer discounts on traffic summonses.

He also agreed that the demerit system needed to be enforced more strongly, saying its enforcement was lacking.

“In the UK, people obey traffic rules because they know that even though they may be able to pay the summons, they will not be able to run away from the demerit points".

“So, even rich people over there are not willing to commit traffic violations because they know once enough points are taken off for the violations, their licence will be revoked or cancelled by the authorities,” he said as reported by FMT.