Malaysian senator Rabiyah Ali has proposed that vehicles with outstanding violations in Malaysia should not only be meted the maximum fines but also be disallowed from leaving the country until those fines are settled.
Rabiyah, a senator from United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), took issue with reckless drivers and those who go beyond the speed limit in Malaysia, saying that they deserve to pay the maximum in fines according to Malaysian law.
She told Parliament on Tuesday, December 4, “The problem of illegal racing and reckless driving by owners of (luxury cars and high-powered motorcycles) from Singapore has been a tough challenge for us.
The North-South Expressway, from Johor Bahru to Malacca, has become a ‘test circuit’ for these vehicles almost every week.”
The senator believes that the high price of the fines, as well as the ban on leaving Malaysia will help solve the pressing issue of drivers from Singapore driving at unlawful speeds in the highways of the country.
Speeding and lawless Singaporean drivers make up the bulk of the 275,663 unpaid summons in Malaysia in the six-year period between 2010 and 2016. There are 3,423 arrest warrants and 184,024 unpaid summonses in Malaysia for citizens of Singapore.
In 2017, for a 48 hour period wherein Malaysian federal traffic police kept their eye on reckless or speeding drivers from Singapore resulted in 3,000 Singaporeans getting caught for different breaches in the law, mostly for speeding, and also including ones with current summonses that were still unsettled. The Singaporeans who were caught ended up paying S$64,342 (almost RM200,000) in fines.