Rider and passenger safety were listed as the number one priorities by Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook when considering bringing motorcycle ride-hailing services to Malaysia.
While the services are popular in many countries around the region, Loke explained that motorcycle accidents were alarmingly high in Malaysia, and would thus pose a danger to riders and motorists.
The Minister added that the country’s Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) is the body responsible for making the call, but personally, he doesn’t agree with implementing anything of the sort.
Responding to a question posed by Rembau rep, Khairy Jamaluddin today in the country’s Dewan Rakyat (lower house), where the former Sports Minister had asked if the government was planning to introduce a local answer to similar services offered across the region, most notably, in Indonesia by Go-Jek.
Loke added that the government had only just technically regulated car ride-hailing services, with motorcycles being an even more difficult to monitor.
In February of last year, the sitting Barisan Nasional government was forced to shutdown a motorcycle taxi service named Dego Ride, that had been operating illegally outside government purview.
At the time, the then Transport Minister highlighted that recent measures improving public transportation such as the LRT, MRT, monorail and KTM commuter trains were there to use in lieu of such motorbike services.
On the subject of public transportation, the current minister reiterated the government’s election promise to provide a monthly RM100 pass for citizens to use the sundry trains and buses throughout the Klang Valley, saying it will be realized early next year.
In June, Loke had said that the PH coalition government needed more time to implement the pass, they they had limited knowledge of the financial implications and costs when they initially brought up the idea.
Well, if we had RM100 every time an election promise was made with limited fiscal understanding of the matter at hand … we’d at least have enough to buy a travel pass by early next year.
