Commercial vehicle operators could be suspended if they fail JPJ audit after being involved in an accident

Commercial vehicle operators are reminded to ensure the safety of their vehicles in order to not harm other motorists, reported Bernama. These operators risk being suspended by the land public transport agency (APAD) if their vehicles fail the road transport department’s (JPJ) audit process after being involved in accidents, said transport minister Anthony Loke.

“Now it is part of the SOP (standard operating procedure, meaning that if there is an accident, [and it] doesn’t matter if it is a normal accident or a fatal one, the lorry company will be audited. Last year there were hundreds of lorry companies that failed their audits and had their operations suspended,” Loke said.

The transport minister stressed that the ban on three-pin and USB sockets on express buses is still in effect, as the guidelines for their use are still being drafted. The JPJ is working with the Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (Sirim) and the Energy Transition and Water Transformation Ministry to develop the guidelines.

This comes after a teenager who was a passenger on board a bus in Penang was fatally electrocuted. Subsequently, APAD imposed a ban on the use of charging sockets in all express buses.

Separately, Puspakom CEO Mahmood Razak Bahman stated today that there is no regulation requiring heavy vehicles to have the same type of tyre they originally came with, after a lorry owner was apparently cited as saying that a Puspakom regulation on tyre type was among the causes of tyre rentals from ‘cosmetic agents’ to pass inspections, which the Puspakom CEO said was untrue.

Today, the transport minister also announced that Puspakom will no longer allow multiple slot bookings for the same vehicle registration, to weed out middlemen and ‘runners’ who have been found to sell inspection appointment slots for a profit.

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