Perak Road Safety Department (JKJR) urges Ipohites to use overhead bridges before the authorities start imposing fines on those who jaywalk.
Its director, Syahruddin Abdul Hamid said despite having many such bridges around the city, Ipohites prefer to risk their lives and limbs when crossing busy streets and roads.
“We’ll discuss this with Ipoh City Council under the ambit of the Road Safety Council and make such proposal. Kuala Lumpur has done so. Must we wait?
“Most of the bridges are built near schools to prevent students from dashing across busy roads to their schools,” he told reporters after officiating a road safety campaign at an overhead bridge along Jalan Bercham on Tuesday, March 21.
He insisted that the only way to resolve the problem was by introducing laws.
“However, we’ve to educate the public via advocacy programmes first. This will follow by a month’s trial period before laws are put in place,” he said.
During the launch of the campaign Ipoh Barat MCA youth chief, Aldrich Low along with PWD and police officers distributed flyers and car stickers to people who passed by the overhead bridge.
They later had a look at the upgraded bridge done by Ipoh City Council recently.
“We’ve to ensure that the bridge is safe if we want people to use it. Some of these bridges are not lit at night thus women are afraid to use them. This makes them irrelevant,” he added.
Syahruddin said that in 2015 some 362 students were involved in road accidents. Last year the number was 406.
Nabilah Hamudin
