In August final yr, amendments to the Street Transport Act 1987 to increase penalties for driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol and medicines in addition to for reckless driving was learn, tabled and handed by the Dewan Rakyat, and got here into pressure in October.
The amendments to Sections 41 to 45 of the Act launched heavier penalties for severe driving-related offences. For instance, these convicted of inflicting dying due DUI (underneath Part 44) now face a jail sentence from 10 to fifteen years and a high-quality of between RM50,000 to RM100,000 for the primary offence in addition to being disqualified from holding a driving licence for at the least 10 years. It’s a considerable enhance from the earlier three to 10 years jail sentence and RM8,000 to RM20,000 high-quality.
A yr on, the transport ministry is whether or not these measures have been efficient at lowering situations of DUI, The Star reviews. In accordance with transport minister Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong, the ministry has commissioned the Malaysian Institute of Street Security Analysis (MIROS) to search out out if the harsher penalties have helped cut back such occurrences.
“The transport ministry has requested MIROS to conduct a examine on the effectiveness on all intervention measures carried out by the ministry and all stakeholders to handle the problem of driving underneath affect, because the (amended) legal guidelines have been enforced for nearly one yr now,” he mentioned on the Dewan Rakyat earlier this week.
He added that the examine would additionally embrace suggestions for intervention measures to sort out the DUI difficulty sooner or later. At current, Wee mentioned the ministry will proceed to work carefully with the police and residential ministry to strengthen enforcement and conduct advocacy campaigns. The ministry had in June final yr conducted a survey on introducing stricter DUI enforcement earlier than the legal guidelines had been amended.
