CVLB - Organise Public Transport Refresher Course

The Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board ( CVLB ) should introduce a compulsory intensive refresher or awareness course for all drivers of public transport such as bus, minibus, school bus and taxi following the recent increasing number of deaths and accidents involving buses.

With the introduction of such courses, it will automatically disqualify those drivers who have summonses and warrant of arrests to drive public transport vehicles. Only those drivers free from any offences could attend the refresher course and awareness courses.

CVLB should organise the refresher course every two years and without such certficates, these drivers would not be allowed to drive. The certificates must be accredited and approved by the Ministry of Transport and consist of the individual driver's assessment, theory and practical training.

If Puspakom made it compulsory for commercial vehicles to be checked after a certain period of time why not the drivers? As this also involved the safety of passengers.

The refresher or awareness course content should include important subjects such as legal responsibilities, passenger and personal safety, health and personal safety awareness, risk assessment, breakdowns and accidents, duty of care, evacuation procedures, fitness test, medical check-up and defensive driving.

By introducing an assistant or co-driver and restricting the hours of driving for long distance travelling are not good enough if these drivers are not well versed on other aspects of passengers and personal safety.

If those horror road accidents continue, the consumers would lose confidence on our public transport system and it would affect the Government efforts to encourage the public to use it.

The proposal by FOMCA to the Government to provide free school bus service as part of the education subsidy should be considered and should include subsidy to upgrade those ageing school buses for the convenience and safety of our school children.

The school bus and other public transport operators must improve the quality and efficiency of their services in line with the fare increases to give a better services to the consumers at large.