AES the wrong way to road safety

VOXPOP ‘Transport Minister Kong Cho Ha, if you truly care and want to save lives, then use the money for the AES to light up the entire stretch of the North-South Expressway.'

Kong: AES led to big drop in traffic offences

Joseph Lee: Transport Minister Kong Cho Ha, if you truly care and want to save lives, then use the money for the AES to light up the entire stretch of the North-South Expressway. Lighting up all highways will definitely save lives.

Giudice: If the system is so good and there is nothing to hide, why not just be transparent and disclose everything relating to the project? That would shut the opposition up and the public will wholeheartedly support the same.

But no! Like everything else that BN touches, there are parts of the deal that are hidden from public view.

Azizan: The ministry should be giving the money from traffic fines to the local councils. Why must the money go to private firms? The objective of setting up private firms is to make money, not teach people to care for road safety. These are all crony companies, to be sure.

KiaSi-SiamSai: The people are not against the AES. It is just how the government implemented and awarded the AES. Questions surround who the beneficiaries of the project are, you fool.

KD: There's an easier way to instil safe driving habits and save lives, if ever speed was the factor. Why not pursue those avenues first? In Australia, fixed or mobile cameras are clearly announced through signboards before all speed trap areas.

If you are serious about saving lives along dangerous roads, then create humps and display clear signboards that will definitely make an impact.

Anyway, with this AES, how is the government going to deal with government vehicles being driven recklessly and how about genuine situations of ambulance and the usual VIP serenading traffic police and their escort cars?

Quigonbond: Here's one "silent majority" talking to you, transport minister. It's the indiscriminate taking of photographs of offenders at locations unconnected to high traffic accidents that's leading to an atmosphere of fear.

People don't want to lose money, and people don't want the trouble of going to the traffic court to fight the summonses. Isn't it more logical to suspend the system and publish all AES locations and also a list of what police regard as accident prone locations? The public will be happy to tell you if those places are deserving of an AES.

Asiaone: Yes, I believe there are a number of hotspot accident prone areas, and it shouldn't be a problem to put up the AES system in those places. But first, you need to study the speed limit and revamp to new limits as many roads have been widened tremendously and secondly, I request that the Penang state government helps set up huge signboards 1km and 500 metres before the AES locations to warn motorists.

ABU, Don't Play Play: To all who are proposing to place prior warnings for drivers to slow down, do remember that most signboards in Malaysia are covered with Ah Long (loanshark) advertisements. The question is, why are these Ah Long advertisements still so prevalent?

Timothy: If we drivers follow the speed limit strictly for the next six months, then the two companies may go bankrupt. Will the government then pump in money to save them from bankruptcy?

Joseph Lee: If only Kong truly knows how the silent majority feels, he will not be so arrogant. BN ministers use ‘feel good' words easily, just to sound nice and make themselves appear to be caring.

However, they actually don't care about the silent majority. In this case, as long as the stakeholders in the two private firms controlling the AES make money, Kong will care nothing about how we feel.

Cocomomo: It is time for the ever-suffering silent majority to show their disgust for corruption. Whoops, that means many MPs will loose their seats. Well, you asked for it. So silent majority, exercise your power to kick out the corrupt.

Mushiro: Kong, are you sure you got the right message from the silent majority? The last time the silent majority spoke, MCA lost more than half of its parliamentary seats. This time MCA will lose all seats. Don't provoke the silent majority.

Anonymous #06659895: If MCA really cares for the rakyat, it would not have done so badly in the 2008 election. Its leaders will not be on corruption charges. And the MCA will not have a ‘pornstar' as president.

No Brave New Malaysia

Onyourtoes: If affirmative action does not work because it is subjected to abuse, as the writer argues, then what about other government programmes and polices? All government programmes and policies are subjected to ‘capturing' by the vested interest groups, not just affirmative action programmes and policies.

I think you mistook implementation failure with policy failure. This has been your argument for a long time, Thayaparan.

ThisLandIsMine: Well written, Thayaparan! You have by choice omitted the fact that the wealth of this country was looted and pillaged by the immigrants who were brought in by the British to the extent that the original people's kindness then was mistaken for their weaknesses and this continues until now.

The original people then were manipulated to accept these immigrants and their never-ending desires to plunder the wealth of this country. What is sad is that these immigrants became citizens and that their business practices then continued until now, and yet they are acknowledged as being good businessmen.

When a few bumiputeras benefit from affirmative actions, allegations of cronyism and favouritism surface to undermine the party that saw the need to correct this imbalance for the long-term survival of this country.

Anonymouse_6458: The excuses of ‘ThisLandIsMine' are typical of the Umno elite for having led this country to its present, sorry state for the general Malay in the street.

Rather than admit they had gobbled up and squandered all the country's wealth, they blame it on the pendatang (immigrants), forgetting that the pendatang did not come here to enrich themselves but slogged for generations, and large percentages of whom still lead middle- to lower-class lives.

As for the concept of the "original people", I would like to remind this commentator that these are the ones who strangely are not given bumiputera status but are the lowest ranking in our society. Just look at how the Temuan and the Penan are treated.

Swipenter: ‘ThisLandIsMine', as usual those who are lagging behind are always blaming history and the immigrants but never themselves. Now they are hell bent in exacting ‘revenge' and correcting perceived historical injustice by discriminating against the non-original people/citizens of this land.

They also tried to exact revenge on the colonialists of this land by organising campaigns to buy their goods last and embarking on a buying spree of their economic assets. And after more than 40 years of doing that, they are still acting like cry babies and blaming others for their apparent lack of economic success.

Which many think is a lot of bull, considering how much economic wealth and political power is concentrated on a few elitist families, their cronies and friends. When apartheid ended in South Africa, many hoped that wealth distribution would be more equitable but the reality is that wealth is hoarded by the new elitist ANC Africans, just like here, where wealth is hoarded by the elitist Umno Malays.

ACR: It is a misrepresentation to say the immigrants brought in by the British "looted and pillaged" and took advantage of the original people's kindness. Indians and Chinese were largely brought in as labourers.

The British experience in its colonies had been such that the natives could not be relied upon for productive activity - Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad & Tobago - hence indentured Indian labourers were brought in.

Today, through generations of hard labour, they control the economy. It is absolute rot to talk about the economic benefits the immigrants now reap without looking at their sacrifices.

Thousands of Indians died clearing the Malayan forests for rubber cultivation and building roads and the railway tracks. It is largely for this, and the fact that Malaya was already home, that they were given citizenship.

Many have a history of 150 to 200 years here. Yet they cannot aspire for certain offices, unlike former Selangor MB Mohd Khir Toyo and others whose ancestors had come much later but are called the "original people".