Saman ekor system unfair to motorists

(My letter in the Star 16 Jul 2010)


I share the view of JT of Subang Jaya that “Saman ekor is not the answer” (The Star, July 15).
If the statement from Senior Asst Comm (II) Datuk Abdul Aziz Yusof that the police had issued more than 10 million saman ekor since 2000 is true, it would mean that one million summonses were issued a year, which translates to more than 2,700 summonses per day. Looking at the sheer number, I wonder if the police can keep their data 100% correct without human or technical errors and penalising those innocent.
It is a universal principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. In the case of saman ekor, the onus is on the police to prove that the offenders did commit the offence, but this is not the case.
The way it works now is that the offenders themselves have to pay for the photo evidence if they want to dispute the summons. Is this justice? Why don’t the police send the photos together with the summons in the first place? It might be costly, but if it reduces doubts and disputes, it is fair and worth the cost. It is definitely better than to blacklist the offenders without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves.
I am not against traffic summonses. In fact, I think the Government should increase the fines for red-light beaters, queue jumpers, speedsters, reckless drivers and the like, but it must be done in a proper manner to prevent some people from becoming an unfortunate victim of technical errors.
I agree with JT that saman ekor is not a deterrent and has not shown any real success in reducing the number of traffic offenders.
The reasons are simple. Firstly, the offenders themselves will only realise months later that they had allegedly committed an offence. By then, they could have committed many more offences.
Secondly, nobody sees the summons being issued to the driver physically. Whether the summons comes later or not, road users don’t see any action being taken at the moment the offence is being committed. Who would know the offender was penalised later?
Saman ekor just creates doubts and terrible inconvenience to the people. We need to improve on how it is delivered, or just do away with it for justice sake. I believe this is what the majority of the people are saying.
A. HASHIM,
Sungai Petani.