Kuala Lumpur: The government has no plans yet to make dashcams a mandatory feature in road vehicles, transport minister Loke Siew Fook said today.
He said the proposal was “doable”, but that pushback from the public could be expected due to the additional expenses involved.
“Anything made mandatory, people will say it adds cost. They already feel the pinch and don’t want additional expenses.
“So, this (installing dashcams) is something we haven’t decided to make mandatory yet,” he said during an engagement session with news editors on road safety.
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“What we can do is start with making it a condition for new cars. Manufacturers will have to meet certain specifications, and a dashcam could be one of these features.
“Any new car produced must then include a dashcam. This is something we might consider,” he said, adding that any implementation of a new rule across the board would be “very challenging”.
He gave the example of child car seats, the installation of which he said “seems simple” but was actually very difficult to implement.
He said some car owners had complained that they could not fit enough child car seats in their five-seater vehicles to accommodate all of their young children.
“Some vehicles don’t even have the right specifications to fit a child car seat at all. So if we were to make it (dashcams) compulsory, we could perhaps do it for new vehicles.”
He added that the government might start with mandating dashcams for certain categories of vehicles such as public buses.
Cabinet committee on road safety to meet regularly
Separately, Loke said a Cabinet committee on road safety, comprising representatives from several ministries and government agencies, would increase its frequency of meetings.
He said the committee was established 20 to 30 years ago but had not been effective due to a “lack of focus” and irregular meetings.
“Deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has expressed his commitment (to ensuring that the committee meets more frequently),” he said, adding that the meetings must be chaired by at least one deputy prime minister.
He said the Cabinet committee now plans to meet at least three times a year to review the measures taken by the various agencies and ministries on road safety and assess their effectiveness.
Earlier, Loke revealed that in 2023 alone, about 600,000 road accidents were recorded, more than 6,000 of which were fatal.
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