by Rosli Mansor
Perak has identified two ‘blackspots’ where accidents often occur and are a risk to road users, namely in the Kinta and Kerian districts.
Chairman of the State Infrastructure, Energy, Water and Public Transport Committee, Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin said that the Public Works Department (JKR) has implemented the programme to ensure the safety of road users.
“There are some places we have identified that can invite accidents there, on state government land or roads. So we have implemented a programme to identify these ‘blackspots’ and found that Perak has two.
“There are two places where road accidents often occur, one is in Kinta and the second is in Kerian. So monitoring and alerts from JKR will be more detailed in the locations of these two ‘blackspots’,” he said.
He said this when answering a verbal question from State Assembly Member Wong May Ing (DAP- Pantai Remis) at the 15th Perak State Assembly on Wednesday.
The verbal question was about the number of recorded accidents that were caused by the physical condition of potholed roads, construction works and the lack of street lighting.
In the meantime, Mohammad Nizar said that for next year’s planning, a total of 10 locations in the state have been identified for road repair works.
“In 2023, 10 locations have been identified involving districts such as Manjung, Larut Matang and Selama (LMS), Kinta, Batang Padang and Kerian.
“This is the cost we estimate to repair or prevent road accidents, a total of RM 3.2 million, God willing we will make sure it can be implemented next year.
“Accordingly, road repair work at the locations will be implemented after the allocation is received.
“We want to ensure that for any state and federal roads, there will be efforts to repair the roads that are damaged. And avoid the risk of causing accidents,” he said.
Meanwhile, he added that accident record data states that most road accidents occur as a result of violations and crashes.
“While the physical condition of the road may cause accidents, however, the report we got from the police and the Road Transport Department (JPJ) found that it was very unlikely to be a factor in the accident.
“Usually accidents on federal and state roads occur as a result of crashes, violations or negligence of the driver himself. However, we will ensure that the planned programme runs to ensure the comfort of road users,” he said.
