The police may strictly enforces road regulations if the current ‘Op Selamat’ fails to bring down accident fatalities.

Inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar said there would be “total enforcement” of road regulations if it could make road users in the country to be more cautious.

“In the past, we used the approach of advising the people, but it was not effective in changing the attitude of drivers. So, if Op Selamat fails to reduce the rate of fatalities, the police will apply the total enforcement approach,” he told reporters at the Bukit Aman Senior Officers’ Mess in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Earlier, he attended the pinning of ranks for nine state police chiefs who were promoted to Senior Deputy Commissioner of Police, as well as four state police chiefs and two deputy police chiefs who were promoted to Deputy Commissioner of Police.

Khalid said when police implement the total enforcement approach, the people should support and welcome the move as it would reduce the number of fatal accidents in the country.

“When total enforcement is implemented, let there be no parties who regard the police action as heartless and start requesting for discounts and so on. We have relaxed the conditions before but the attitude of drivers and motorcyclists has not improved,” he said.

He said the police would be conducting studies as well as carry out improvements to lower the rate of fatalities in road accidents.

He said for the record, in 2012, there were 6,900 accident fatalities compared to 6,700 deaths recorded in 2011.

He reminded motorcyclists to be careful as they were the highest contributor of deaths in road accidents in the country.

Op Selamat, which was launched on July 30, recorded 53 deaths by the fourth day.            

- Bernama