Employers Hiring Drivers With Criminal Records Should Face Strict Penalties
GENERAL
KUALA LUMPUR, May 13 (Bernama) -- Employers or companies that allow individuals with criminal records or repeated traffic offences to continue working as drivers must face heavy punishment, according to an expert.
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) Road Safety Research Centre head Assoc Prof Dr Law Teik Hua said strict action was necessary to encourage employers to conduct more thorough background screenings before hiring drivers, especially for heavy vehicles such as buses and lorries.
'Employers must not hire drivers without proper screening. If there is negligence and the driver is subsequently involved in a serious incident, the employer should be penalised with fines or, in extreme cases of negligence, imprisonment should also be considered.
'Essentially, employers should not take a lax attitude purely for profit while ignoring road user safety,' he told Bernama.
Earlier today, nine members of the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) were killed and two others seriously injured in a crash involving an FRU truck and another lorry carrying stones along Jalan Chikus-Sungai Lampam, Teluk Intan, Perak.
Perak police chief Datuk Noor Hisam Nordin said the 45-year-old lorry driver who was arrested had six criminal records, including drug-related offences.
Law also questioned whether the lorry company involved had conducted routine vehicle inspections at the Computerised Vehicle Inspection Centre (Puspakom) every six months.
He said preliminary investigations revealed that the lorry had suffered a malfunction that caused the steering system to fail, a problem unlikely to occur if the vehicle had undergone periodic inspections.
"The issue of enforcement has long been raised, but firm action is only seen after accidents or serious incidents occur, and this raises the question of whether a preventive approach alone is insufficient. Instead, heavy penalties such as a minimum fine of RM50,000 or imprisonment of more than 10 years should be imposed to ensure employers are deterred and do not take things lightly," he said.
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