SUNGAI PETANI: Careless and reckless. These are among the attitudes of express bus drivers that are putting passengers' safety in jeopardy, particularly during the festive seasons.
Kedah Road Transport Department (RTD) director Stien Van Lutam said in an undercover operation yesterday, the department caught two express bus drivers violating regulations including using mobile phone while driving.
One of the express bus drivers, he said, was booked for committing two offences while transporting 30 passengers from Alor Star to Kuala Lumpur.
"The 61-year-old driver was caught using his mobile phone near Taman Wira in Mergong, Alor Star at 8.45am.
"Later, at 9.06am, the driver pulled over at an undesignated location to pick up parcels and passengers at Km43.6 of the North-South Expressway (Plus)," Stien told reporters at a static operation in front of Sungai Petani RTD office here.
He said the bus driver was issued with two compounds by an undercover RTD enforcement officer under the Hari Raya Aidiladha Operation 2024.
"For the first offence, the express bus driver was slapped with a RM300 compound and for the second offence, he was issued a RM150 compound," he said.
Stien added that the findings revealed that many express bus drivers were still having attitude issues, particularly being careless and reckless while behind the wheels.
"This is worrying, because whenever the drivers fail to show competency while on the job, they are putting the passengers' safety at risk of getting involved in an accident or even worse, fatal accident," he said.
He said the department is also taking proactive action to carry out inspection at two main express bus terminals during the Hari Raya Aidiladha festive to step up the safety, quality and dependency of the express buses.
Stien said Kedah RTD is also carrying out three major operations between June 10 and June 30, focusing on commercial vehicles, motorcycles and private vehicles.
"Between June 10 and today (Thursday), we inspected 8,277 vehicles resulting in 2,627 notices being issued for various offences with 74 vehicles impounded.
"Motorcyclists still top the number of offences during the period," he said.
During yesterday's operation, the state RTD also distributed free crash helmets that comply with Sirim safety standards to motorcyclists to inculcate road safety awareness.
The department, he said, is stationing officers to monitor 37 accident hotspot stretches in 10 districts all over Kedah for the Hari Raya Aidiladha festive.
Kota Setar, Kuala Muda, Kulim are the top three districts with the most numbers of hotspots, comprising of Plus Expressway, federal and state roads.