IT has been more than half a year since the new government has taken over. The new transport minister had promised to take up the issue of safety as a priority. I pose the following questions to see if Malaysia is on the right track.

• Has the Transport Ministry used the right indicator for road safety as part of its key performance indicators? The currently used indicator – deaths per 10, 000 vehicles – is improving because of rapid motorisation (denominator increase) rather than due to a decrease in the number of deaths.
• Are we making effective use of current resources for data collection? Have alternative solutions for data collection been explored? The number of serious injuries is on the decline while the number of road traffic deaths has increased (an anomaly).
• Has enforcement by different agencies been synchronised? Each agency seems to have its own priorities at the moment. Countries which have succeeded in road safety have coordinated their efforts in enforcement.
• Have the road safety education of children and our educational campaigns been evaluated in terms of actual cost effectiveness? The previous government had spent millions of ringgit on road safety education of children and media campaigns.
• Are our resources for road safety being spent in the right way? We have a Road Safety Department in every state, which is unique in the world.
• What is the current state of the proposed National Transportation Safety Board? How serious is the current government about achieving world-class transportation safety? Do we have the capacity to set up such an agency? If not, how do we go about developing such a capacity?

I pose these questions as I have personally seen governments implement evidence-based interventions and succeed in road safety. Though such solutions exist, many governments choose to ignore the science and implement interventions based on the thoughts or interpretations of individuals.

* Dr Krishnan Rajam is the head of the department of family medicine at RCSI UCD Malaysia Campus, Penang.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.