Please Drive Carefully

My wife and I were at the Baiduri Bank Hari Raya bash the night before. Rano had already reported that we had Agnes Monica and another which he did not mention was Saiful Apek. I have never seen Agnes perform before whether live or on tv but Agnes, I have to admit is one energetic lady. I am not her fan though, so I only know one of her songs unlike some members of the audience who remembers every single lyric. Anyway today's post is not about Baiduri or Agnes.

On our way back from Jerudong, we got caught up in this long traffic jam at Tanjong Bunut. When we got nearer, we saw the firemen busy trying to hose down the car which apparently caught fire and trapping the driver inside the inferno. Yesterday morning I heard the tragic news that the driver died in the car. There were two cars involved in the accident that night. Both cars did not survive the accident by the look of it.

Yesterday afternoon on our way back from Lumut was another long jam. This time an SUV turned turtle. Exactly a week ago, someone died on the same road stretched. According to the police log, minus the entries above, 4 deaths and 53 accidents happened in the first week of Hari Raya.

When I started my career at the Communications Ministry more than 20 years ago, one of my portfolio was the Road Safety Council. In Brunei and in many other countries as well, road safety is a multi agency issue. Land transport looks after the driver licensing, registration and safety of vehicles, the police looks after the enforcement, the public works built and maintain the roads and the traffic lights and not to mention there are other people doing road signs, simpang signs etc. Coordinating across multiple agencies is not easy. But then can we blame bureaucracy fully?

How about the drivers and the vehicles concerned? The one thing that people talked about is the possibility of accidents being caused by not so alert drivers texting sms. I have seen that often enough. The other day I even saw one lady driver reading a newspaper. She must have thought being on Jalan Tutong in the morning with the traffic moving at a snail's pace, she can read newspapers.

For road safety, I guess we are all responsible like it or not. So, please, please, please drive carefully.

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