PRAI: Action will be taken against anyone, including prominent artistes, promoting illegal motorcycle racing or modification.
There has been a growing trend of motorcycles being modified illegally, particularly the Yamaha Y15ZR, which is better known as “Ysuku”.
Bukit Aman traffic investigation and enforcement chief Datuk Azisman Alias said today that he was aware of groups and artistes, who had uploaded videos of their illegally modified Ysukus on social media platforms.
“We are monitoring the activities of such groups and will act immediately if we have evidence,” he said after the closing ceremony of a road safety awareness campaign organised by the Social Security Organisation (Socso) and police, at Flex Penang, here, today.
“They will be dealt with according to the law, whether they are artistes or anyone for that matter.”
Azisman said the police, who had set up Squad 42 to tackle mat rempit, would investigate and collect the necessary evidence.
“It is true that they are now more daring to flout rules and regulations, and even promote such unhealthy activities.
“We understand they are doing this to generate more income through advertisements, but they should not be too obsessed to the point of breaking the law,” he said, adding that many motorcycle accidents were due to riders losing control of their machines.
“Many Ysuku riders ride their bikes in a tiga suku (crazy) manner and couldn’t care less about rules and regulations, particularly the speed limit.
“For them, the road is like a racing track,” he stressed, adding that police would not let their guard down and would beef up monitoring efforts.
Socso chief executive officer Datuk Seri Mohamed Azman Aziz Mohammed said, up to May, Socso had paid out a total of RM315.96 million to contributors who met with accidents on their way to and from the workplace.
He said RM689.9 million was paid out for the whole of last year.
“For this year alone, there were 15,713 accidents to and from the workplace, involving 290 deaths.
“This is not only a loss in productivity, but also a bigger loss to the families of those concerned,” he added.
Azman said about 65 per cent of the accidents involved individuals below the age of 40, and about 80 per cent were male.
“Studies also found that more than 52 per cent of such accidents happened within 5km of the workplace,” he said.