FEWER DEATHS, SO OPS SIKAP A SUCCESS ...

The recently concluded Ops Sikap XII, carried out during the weeks to and after the 2007 CNY holidays, saw 207 road deaths compared to the 226 deaths during the previous year's CNY holidays. And this has been declared a "resounding success" by the federal traffic police.
I guess if the goal of all Ops Sikap is to reduce death toll, yeah, I suppose you could call this a success. But hey, take a look at the total number of road accidents. The 2007 CNY Ops Sikap recorded 14,930 road accidents, as compared to 13,153 in 2006. That's 1,777 more accidents than last year!
A "resounding success?" I think not. A marginally less number of people died in an astoundingly higher number of accidents hardly qualifies as a "success". To me a "success" (if you can call it a "success" when you talk about deaths) is when you have a lot less deaths in a lot less accidents.
I was also astounded by the news reports that say a lot of our motorists do not even have licences to drive or ride their vehicles. Out of the 16,493 traffic offences recorded during the Ops Sikap XII, 28 per cent were committed by those without driving licences.
I've known all along that most road accidents are caused by stupid people. Little did I know that they are caused by moronic idiots who are too stupid to pass their driving tests, or too stupid to know that they need to have a licence to operate their vehicles.
Speaking of Ops Sikap XII, I too am part of its statistics. During the drive from KL to Johor, I painfully adhered to the highway's speed limit, arriving at my relative's home more than one hour later than usual. It was when I hit the trunk road -- just a few kilometres away from my destination -- that I was flagged by a traffic policeman. Apparently I was doing 72 km/h on a 60 km/h stretch.
Yup, geram ke tak? RM300 gone, just because I was too busy having a nice conversation with my extremely curious twin godsons to notice the speed limit signage.

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