to ACT, or NOT to act.... that's the question....

As university students, we rely on public transportation to get back to our hometown, to see and embrace our love ones. The question is: Is public transportation ALWAYS safe? Well, to me, I certainly DISAGREE but I'll leave that question for you to thinker for a moment. Everytime when I board on a bus to travel somewhere, I would always think, “Is this bus going to overturn now? Will I be able to reach my destination safely?”

What happened was a life of my dear friend was taken away while she was on the way to Kuala Lumpur by an express bus. Her name is Lee Nian Ning. She is a beautiful 21 year old medicine student, pure at heart and has the whole world in her hands. She had her life all planned out. But her future crashed right before her eyes: It happened all because of the reckless bus driver.

Losing a friend is indeed a weird feeling. No words could express how we felt. I thought that nothing could be done due to this incident. However, democracy somehow proves me wrong. My friends had set up a blog (http://buscrashnomore.blogspot.com- if you guys haven’t heard of this blog, do check it out) regarding to her incident hoping to reach out to the people out there which receive many response in return. The purpose of the blog is to voice out on safer long distance bus rides for Malaysians. The best part was that petition about road safety was set up by them and many people actually signed up for it! Then, the petition was sent to the government.

You guys can go and have a look at the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/buscrash/petition.html

After all the work, finally there has been progress. This is what my friend has forwarded to my mail:

From: Raymond <raymondtjh@yahoo.com>
To: teoleeken@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 19:35:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Dialogue Session

Dear Lee Ken,

Good morning. My name is Raymond Teoh and I am attached with the Road Safety Department as an Assistant Director. Firstly, let me extend my deepest condolence for the loss of your friend.

Everyday we hear about accidents occurring but it only really effects us when the victim is someone close to us. We, at the Road Safety Department are working tirelessly to reduce the number of fatalities and injuries due to road accidents.

As such, we welcome a dialogue session with your association on how we can work together to improve road safety in Malaysia. I have scheduled for the dialogue session to take place on the 16th May 2008 at 9.30 a.m. in the office of the Road Safety Department (Level 2, Block D5, Complex D, Putrajaya).

Please confirm your attendance and inform me of the number of your associates that would be attending this dialogue session. Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks.

Regards,

Raymond Teoh

Road Safety Department

Though there has been progress, it wasn’t easy at the first place. Before that, they have tried many times to get in touch with people from the Transport Ministry but so far they have received no reply. They do face a lot of rejections before they manage to talk to the people from the Road Safety Department, even I myself. I teamed up with a group of friends and talk to the people about our petition and hoping that it will change the current road safety. A lot of them gave us their full support, while there are others; who told us to just leave it to the government. I do not disagree with them, but if we do not take the effort to voice out or do something... who can hear us? If this could happen to my friend, it can happen to you too.

There might be changes if the society work together and voice out their opinions. Though there might be or might not be any changes, at least we do give it a shot, and see how it goes right? We must always bear in mind that this is a democratic country, which means the people has the rights and freedom to speak up and voice out their opinions. I must clarify here first that I do not mean to insult or support any other parties but rather more on my frustrations and disappointment to what has happened on my friend. I hope this matter will raise a more pivotal issue and question the importance of democracy.

By: Neoh Shin Yen and Tan Wei Fu