Ops Sikap Degenerating Into Oops! Silap!
Ops Sikap Degenerating Into “Oops! Silap!
M. Bakri Musa
It is now a practice that with every festive season the authorities would go into high gear aimed at reducing the horrifically high rates of traffic accidents and fatalities. Judging by the results however, these initiatives are more show than substance. These “Ops Sikap” (a contraction for Operasi Sikap – Operation Attitude, as in changing the attitude of road users) are now more “Oops! Silap!” (Oops! I goofed!)
There has been no change to the dreadful trend since the series was stated over eight years ago. That should not surprise anyone. We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect to have different results. The surprise is that the authorities have not yet figured this out; this latest Ops Sikap essentially replicated what was done during previous twenty operations. There is minimal effort at learning from earlier experiences; the program lacks innovations.
This latest edition began on September 13 and just ended two weeks later today. It registered 238 fatalities. As with past years, the overwhelming victims were motorcyclists.
The Ops Sikap I over Christmas Holidays of 2001 saw 223 deaths, averaging about 15 per day. At the midpoint mark, Ops Sikap X covering the Chinese New Year Holidays of 2006, there were 226 deaths. Again, the average was about 15 deaths per day. With this latest Ops Sikap XX over the current Hari Raya season, the average is already 17 per day. That figure may yet climb as we expect deaths from those currently hospitalized for their injuries.
There you have it: three different festivities but same tragic consequences!
No matter how we look at the figures, there is no denying that they tell a grim story, and with no relief in sight. Yet that did not stop the Director-General of the Road Transport Department (RTD), Solah Mat Hassan, from reassuring the public that based on per 10,000 vehicles registered, the accident rate has actually declined!
The Director-General is obviously misreading the statistics. He is basing his conclusion on the annual and overall number of accidents and fatalities, not on the atrociously high spikes during the holiday seasons. To get a clearer picture of the impact of the heavy traffic of the holidays, he should be looking at the comparable two-week period immediately preceding and following the Ops Sikap. Unfortunately neither his department nor the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety (MIROS) collects or publishes such figures.
In America, heightened traffic surveillance over holiday periods extends only over a three-day period, as Americans do not have the luxury of extended holidays. Nonetheless the figures are illustrative. Take the typical three-day American Labor Day weekend. From 2003 to 2008, the fatalities nationally ranged from 473 to 508, with an average of 490. The fatalities over that three-day period represent about 13 percent of the month’s total, only slightly over the 10 percent that would be expected based simply on the prorated number of days (3 days out of 30). That represents a percentage increase of only 30 percent (from 10 to 13 percent).
The statistics look even more impressive if we look at the number of deaths in the comparable three-day period immediately before and after the holidays: they average about 423 over the six-year period. Meaning, the long holiday weekend saw the accident numbers spiked from an average of 423 to 490, an increase of only 15 percent. That is remarkably low increase considering the visibly much heavier traffic volume during the holidays.
To me, that is the more meaningful figure on which to gauge the effectiveness of the measures instituted during the festive season. Although RTD and MIROS do not collect these comparable data, nonetheless we can get a rough estimate from newspaper reports. My guess is that the figures of the comparable two-week periods before and after the Ops Sikap are considerably lower, more likely in the region of about 50, or about 3 a day. Thus the increase during the holiday season is a horrific jump from 3 per day to 15, a five-fold (500 percent) increase, in contrast to the 15 percent we see in America.
That figure that should shock everyone and push us even harder at reducing it.
There are three variables to traffic safety: the road users (drivers, pedestrians, and motorcyclists), the road, and the vehicle. MIROS listed the four E’s to better road safety: education, engineering, enforcement, and the environment. Certainly, attention to these factors would enhance overall road safety and reduce accident rates. These measures have been successfully introduced elsewhere; they are well tested and highly effective. We need not reinvent the wheel; just follow the best practices set elsewhere and modify them appropriately to suit local conditions and audience.
Take education for example. All too often public service announcements and billboards carry and repeat the same annoying message that has the effect of turning people off. “Be careful!” “Be considerate!” “Be patient!” “Use your seat belt!” I have yet to see a public service announcement that would educate drivers on what is the safe space to keep between your car and the one immediately ahead of you if you are going at 40 MPH as compared to 60 MPH. That is one example. Another would be to educate drivers on entering merging traffic and in avoiding distractions, as in using hand phones. In California it is illegal to use hand phone while driving.
Also along the line of education, in view of the disproportionate number of accidents that are alcohol related, in addition to frequent sobriety roadside checks, many judges now sentence drunk drivers to spend time visiting the morgue to see the mangled bodies caused by drunk driving. Along the same line, a night in jail is now mandatory for drunk drivers.
We have however, to differentiate between those measures that would reduce the overall accident rates (as with attention to the four E’s) versus those that are specific to days of especially high volume traffic, as during festive seasons.
Consider enforcement. On any holiday weekend, an hour’s drive on an American freeway and you are likely to meet at least three police patrol cars. Such high visibility of law enforcement personnel keeps drivers on their toes. On one particularly heavy holiday period, the highway patrol resorted literally to having convoys on the freeway, with a police car with all lights flashing leading the way. That kept everyone in line; nobody dared to speed up or overtake.
A few years ago the Malaysian police instituted a novel experiment of actually having a policeman (or woman) ride on express buses. That was highly effective. Today all lorries and express buses are mandated to have speed monitors, thus obviating the need for an on-board human monitors.
Roadside sobriety checks are now a common feature on American roads and streets during high traffic days, as with holidays and special events. It seems that if you have been “stopped checked” or seen someone subjected to it when you are driving, that has a salutary effect that seems to last. You tend to be more cautious for the rest of the trip, and perhaps beyond.
I suggest that at the next Ops Sikap, the authorities introduce some innovations. One would be to have highway convoys and another, random police checks at toll booths. I would also urge the collection of better statistics so we could draw meaningful conclusions and thus devise better strategies and interventions to ameliorate the situation. Again we need not reinvent the wheel. There are already many models in place, the one used by the American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (www.nhtsa.gov) is one.
The tragedy to the lives lost and bodies maimed in these accidents is that the victims are almost always previously healthy and productive citizens, often in the prime of their life. The nation cannot afford such losses. While to the bureaucrats and statistic keepers Ops Sikap may be Oops! Silap!, to the families of the victims, they are needless tragedies and the beginning of their nightmares.
September 28th, 2009 at 5:28 am
A mother culture without meritocracy produces many “tidak-apa” children. And when the grown-up “tidak-apa” children are impregnanted with the genome of corruption, there you have it - Ooops! Silap! Tapi nggak opo2 wes. Just another day passed and nearer to Syurga….. Amien…….
September 28th, 2009 at 5:45 am
Most drivers on Malaysian roads never deserved to pass their driving tests. One incompetent driver i know refused to greased the palms of the JPJ testers and she took 7 tests before she passed. And she still is a poor driver. Hence most drivers possess driving licenses - licenses to die.
October 6th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Dear Dr. Bakri,
I consider poorly made arguments as nothing more than slander. It makes for interesting tabloid fodder, but once examined, it bears a closer resemblance to garbage more than anything else.
I think the general sentiment that Ops Sikap needs a (long overdue) makeover is correct. The Director-General is also correct when he stated that accidents rate has declined. He, however, made an error of defending Ops Sikap via improvements in national accident statistics and fatality index over the last decade or so.
http://www.miros.gov.my/roadfacts.php
I will refrain on commenting your take about the local traffic data collection and publications, as well as on safer roads in the United States (or in a slew of countries, for that matter). I think the former is progressing along just fine, and on the latter, the figures speak for themselves. Just looking at the numbers in 2007, the United Sttes recorded a lower traffic fatality index in the per 10,000 vehicles (1.593) and per 100,000 population (13.61) categories.
I recognize that studying the spike in deaths during the festivities would be a more accurate indicator in measuring the successes of Ops Sikap. However, I find the following part extremely problematic (and disingenous), and I quote:
“My guess is that the figures of the comparable two-week periods before and after the Ops Sikap are considerably lower, more likely in the region of about 50, or about 3 a day. Thus the increase during the holiday season is a horrific jump from 3 per day to 15, a five-fold (500 percent) increase, in contrast to the 15 percent we see in America.”
Lets relook at the figures involved. We know that there are about 6,282 fatalities in the year 2007, or about an average of 17 traffic deaths per day. During the various Ops Sikap for the same year, the total number of traffic deaths during the festivities is not available to me atm. But lets say I use a high-end figure of 20 deaths per day for two weeks for each major festive period (2 Hari Raya, 1 CNY, 1 Christmas & 1 Deepavali) in a year, totalling to about 20 deaths x 14 days x 5 festivities = 1,400 deaths. Even after deducting such a figure from the over 6000 deaths in 2007, the average fatality on a non-Ops Sikap day is still more than (6282-1400 deaths / 365-70 days) 16 deaths per day. I don’t know where you get the ridiculous average of 3 deaths a day for a non-Ops Sikap period, but I think if that is true, that would either mean Ops Sikap lasts for almost everyday of the year, or there are other road fatalities we missed somewhere.
I think fallacies aside, it would be safe to argue that given the number of road fatalities in a year, the figures show that the deaths didn’t increase that spectacularly during the festivities. It would be more accurate to say that Malaysians are dying on the road at a more or less regular rate regardless of whether it is Hari Raya or Tahun Baru Cina. Perhaps Ops Sikap merely highlighted the figures, the horrors and the terrible loss of lives - bringing the deaths to public conciousness - no more, no less.
Truth to be told, we repeat this everytime an Ops Sikap is over for the past few years. More often than not, the public feels that more could be done by the authorities to bring the number of deaths down. Somehow, I think the public also need to take a long hard look at themselves. This Hari Raya, I ventured on the highway for the first time, knowing well that I will be experiencing the balik kampung jam. It was midnight and cars were not only overtaking on the left lane, they were doing it on the curb and off the proper road. I felt sorry for the highway patrol stationed along the way as they were powerless to stop them. Can you imagine being “stopped checked” along a road where the congestion lasts for hours? If the traffic police causes a minor congestion, the public grumbles. Already, bottlenecks at the exiting toll booth lanes are being decried as unnecessary.
I believe the use of electronic devices would be the best deterrent for Malaysian road users. We should severely punish errant road users, and reduce the reliance on traffic police. Photographic and digital evidence is still the most effective (and non-intrusive) form of traffic monitoring, and our policemen could be redirected to serve on neighbourhood safety patrols where such physical presence is more efficient for crime prevention.
We should remember that our high road fatalities also reflect our attitude as drivers/road users. If we break down our accident statistics and sort them by cause, I think it will show that the number of ‘innocent’ victims are few and far in between, although one could argue that one death is one too many.
Yes, so lets not focus too much on the Ops Sikap figures but the other days (or rather, everyday traffic) where road kills remain almost just as gruesomely high.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:04 am
http://www.unescap.org/ttdw/roadsafety/Reports2006/Malaysia_RSpaper.pdf
The above is a paper for your consumption. I do not think the trend has changed much since 2005, and I quote, for your benefit:
“Accident statistic during Ops Sikap11 IV (25 January – 2 February 2003) and V (20 November – 1 Disember 2003) showed that 5% of fatal accident took place during festive season.”
“Although studies shown that causes to most of the accident is because of the drivers themselves, MOWs always make it positive effort in order tom
improve traffic accident by giving further stress on engineering aspect with proactive and reactive action during design, construction and maintenance stage.”
Yes, sounds like road users are being blamed, but perhaps a tightening of the driving licenses is in order? Would that encourage more bribes or less?