MASS MOVEMENT TOWARDS CIVIL CULTURE

Monday, 20th December 2010: The Star:

Twenty-seven passengers of a tour bus were killed after the vehicle hit a divider and overturned on its way down from Cameron Highlands Monday. Twenty-two died at the scene of the accident and five at the Raja Permaisuri hospital here. Another 10 injured, four of whom are men, were being treated at the hospital. Two of the men were said to be in critical condition. This is believed to be the worst road accident in the nation's history.

Discussion thread in Facebook;
Ahmad Rafdi Endut: Selagi tiada penguatkuasaan yang lebih ketat kepada pengusaha dan pemandu bas, selagi itulah kemalangan ini akan sentiasa berlaku. Just came back from KL just now driving in NPE. I drove in the middle lane with a speed of approx. 90kmh. Sud...denly, saw a headlight flashing on me and saw a tour bus behind me. Without any warning, the bus overtook me on the left lane and in a bout less than 5 minute, the bus was gone. The driver drove it like a mad man and manage to see the driver swerving from right to left lane like a mad men. That's how buses were drove in Malaysia.....masyaallah...
Razali Derahman: Safety of public buses have been discussed too many times but things like thing keep happening.. Time to talk less and act more. Each bus need to display the driver's name, bus comp, bus number, route no and JPJ Aduan number with message "Sila lapor kpd no. Ini jika pemandu memandu dgn cara bahaya" - in 3 languages.
Moslim Othman:  My personal opinion for long distance express bus, it is the drivers welfare, reasonable salary and working hours that must be looked into. Pass the cost to the passengers. Otherwise aduan is just another aduan waiting for accidents to happen

I believe the crux of the problem is that we are still far from reaching the status of a Civil Society where civilised culture is entrenched in the way of life of the population. If we are living in such a society, the drivers would understand that their driving license is in fact an acknowledgement of responsibility on the road. They would respect such acknowledgement and uphold safety as consequence of such respect. They would not jeopardised such acknowledgement by maniacal driving to achieve trip counts demanded by their tawkeys or bus operators. When drivers would not succumb to such demands, the operators would have no choice but be responsible as well, else they will be left with buses without drivers. The Law of Supply and Demand would operate here.


The journey to a Civilised Culture where responsibility is paramount and in-built into the psyche of the people as intrinsic of their culture needs more than the hands of the government or regulators.

It need Mass Movement where such feelings need to be sowed, cultivated, popularised and culturised to become National Identity. It needs support from all fronts; media, social network, blogs, talk show, radio (rather than just song after song and rubbish talks), kedai kopi talk, and social discussions apart from good regulation and appropriate law.

People need to believe and feel that being responsible is chick, up-to-date, trendy, enviable and not giving way to rebellion culture. This should be across board, across religions, across racial identity and should become a Mass Movement that transcend partisan politics.

This must be a top priority. People need to believe that this Movement is for the betterment of all and not just a tool for the Government of the Day and rally to this call as Malaysian.