In the early hours of June 9 last year, a tragic accident on the East-West Highway claimed the lives of 15 students.

Last Friday, a special task force appointed by the Transport Ministry released its findings on the crash.

This Malaysiakini report focuses on the official accountability section of the investigation, highlighting two critical issues: infrastructural defects and systemic regulatory failures.

The emphasis is deliberate. Public discourse has long tended to “concentrate responsibility downwards while blurring oversight upwards”.

In practice, this means the driver and the companies involved have been subjected to microscopic scrutiny, while the public sector’s administrative accountability has remained superficial.

Such an imbalanced focus fosters a dangerous illusion: that road safety improves simply by...