6 August 2010 - Has it ever occurred to you that you might have a traffic summon which you are not aware of? Probably because it got lost in the mail or maybe you just never knew it existed. Only when you went to renew your driver’s license or your road tax that you were informed that due to the fact that you have outstanding summons which you haven’t paid that you cannot renew your license. So, you proceeded to check and found out that surprisingly, you do have 1 or 2 summons which you haven’t paid which you must do so before you can do anything else.
To solve this problem, the home ministry will propose that the government review the issuance of summonses for traffic offences through the post following public outcry. Its minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, said the ministry also wanted a review of the government’s decision not to reduce the amounts imposed on traffic offenders.
“There were those who said they were not guilty of the traffic offences as the offences were committed by other individuals who were driving their vehicles or misusing their vehicle registration numbers. “We need to study these again as we don’t want the innocent to be victimised and that all decisions are fair,” he said after an anti-terrorism working committee meeting between Malaysia and Australia, here, yesterday.
Hishammuddin said the government also needed to think of the best and most suitable payment methods for traffic summonses, especially for those with several summonses. He said the ministry’s secretary-general, Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam, would meet the Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan soon to discuss the measures that could be taken.
Federal traffic police chief Datuk Abdul Aziz Yusof had on July 9 said that they had no plans to review the issuance of traffic summonses through the post following complaints from the public that they did not receive the notices. In another development, Hishammuddin said the ministry would step up security at three immigration depots, namely at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), Lenggeng in Negeri Sembilan and Juru in Bukit Mertajam, Penang.
He was referring to the incident where 20 Afghanistan nationals escaped from the KLIA depot early Sunday morning. On the anti-terrorism meeting, Hishammuddin said Malaysia and Australia had reached a mutual understanding to give strong commitment to combating human smuggling and trafficking, as well as trans-boundary crime such as terrorism, money laundering, drug smuggling and cyber crime. — Bernama
