Sin Chew Daily

There have been 21 counts of road accidents involving drunk driving during the first five months of this year (compared to 23 for the whole of last year), causing the death of eight innocent people.

The latest tragedy took place at around six in the morning last Friday. A drunk tertiary student swung his car into the motor lane along Federal Highway and rammed into a motorcycle, killing the motorcyclist and seriously injuring the victim's friend.

Prior to this, a similar incident took place in Kuantan whereby the 42-year-old drunk driver's SUV moving against the traffic hit a car and killed its driver.

Drunk driving is becoming increasingly serious nowadays. Prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin instructed the transport ministry last Saturday to revise the Road Transport Act 1987 (Act 133) to sternly punish drunk drivers.

Under the exiting provision, a drunk driver could be fined up to RM20,000 and jailed not more than ten years under Section 44 for causing a fatal road accident. Under the revised Section 45, drunk drivers will face mandatory imprisonment upon conviction.

On the same day the tertiary student was involved in the fatal road accident, the police in KL and PJ set up road blocks near entertainment spots and night hangouts and arrested 14 people suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol.

The operation continued on Saturday night and the PJ police arrested five suspected drunk drivers within four hours at five different locations in the city.

Apparently even with the instruction from the prime minister and police operations, many stubborn alcoholics continued to pay no regard to their own as well as other people's safety by hitting the road under the influence of alcohol. They never take into account the tragic consequences that could befall the innocent victims of their gross inconsideration.

The recent spate of road accidents involving drunk drivers have been debated heatedly in the Malaysian society.

PAS has urged the government to ban the production and sale of all alcoholic beverages until the government has come up with new measures that will effectively prevent drunk driving. Some political parties have dismissed the proposal as biased, as it will deny the right of non-Muslims to drink.

We already have laws to tackle drunk driving in this country, but in the end we still need to revert to strict law enforcement and education. What we can do now is to impose sterner punishments for violators, along with suitable educational approach to enhance public awareness to abstain from driving under the influence of alcohol.

Japan has very strict laws governing drunk driving. A person could be fined up to RM38,000 or five years in jail and has his or her driving license suspended for causing a road accident after drinking. Similar penalties are also imposed in many other countries.

We should take cue from the laws in other countries in order to stop drunk driving by imposing sterner penalties including mandatory imprisonment.