New system to improve accident-prone stretches

Works Minister Shaziman Abu Mansor today announced a points system which will enable highway concessionaires to identify accident-prone stretches and rectify flaws for safer driving.

He said six points would be given for an accident involving death on a stretch, four points for serious injury, two points for light injury and one point for vehicle breakdown.

When the points for a stretch exceeded 25, the highway concessionaire would take measures at its own cost to improve the safety features at that stretch or black spot, such as widening a sharp bend, he told reporters after officially opening the Setul and Ampangan interchanges of the Kajang-Seremban Highway (Lekas).

Shaziman said the black spots identified on the North-South Plus Expressway were Km 102.8 (Sungai Petani-Sungai Petani Utara), Km257 and Km256.4 (Kuala Kangsar-Jelapang), Km373 (Slim River-Behrang), Km399.4 (Behrang-Tanjung Malim), Km431.4 (Bukit Beruntung-Rawang), Km6.7 (Sungai Rasau Toll Plaza) and Km17.2 (Damansara Interchange).

The black spots on the Kuala Lumpur-Karak Highway were at Km71.4 and Km71.5 (Bentong-Karak), he added.

Shaziman also said that the government was considering looking again at the construction of a highway linking Banting in Selangor to Taiping in Perak, which was proposed for implementation as the West Coast Expressway at one time in two phases, from Banting to Sabak Bernam and then on to Taiping.

He said the Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) and the Public Private Partnership Unit (UKAS) in the Prime Minister's Department were undertaking a study on the traffic flow between Banting and Taiping.

"The highway would serve as an option for users of the North-South Expressway, enabling them to divert should there be heavy traffic flow on the expressway," he said, adding that Lekas gave expressway users from Seremban and Pahang an option to enter Kuala Lumpur.

Shaziman did not rule out the possibility of the west coast highway only running from Banting to the south if that was deemed more necessary.

- Bernama