KAJANG: The Road Transport Department (RTD) has issued nearly 9,000 summonses in the first few days of its special operation against errant commercial vehicles nationwide.
Its director-general Datuk Aedy Fadly Ramli said since the operation was launched on Oct 1, they had screened 32,178 vehicles.
"The main focus of our operation is to take stern action against commercial vehicle owners who fail to comply with the rules set under the Road Transport Act 1987, Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board Act 1987, Land Public Transport Act and other traffic regulations.
"We also want to screen overloading of vehicles as there have been several fatal accidents involving lorries lately," he told reporters when met at an operation along Jalan Bangi Lama here on Friday.
He said that in the last three days, RTD had checked 12,282 goods vehicles, 1,274 public vehicles and 18,622 other vehicles.
"From these numbers, we issued 8,701 summonses for various offences. Among the most common offences were technical violations (6,430), while summonses were also issued for suspected overloading (990) and weigh-ins (339)," he said.
Aedy Fadly said they had taken further action against 4,233 vehicles while 16 were seized.
"The operation will run until Oct 31 with cooperation from the police and National Anti-Drug Agency. During the operation to date, 38 drivers were screened and seven of them tested positive for drugs," he said.
He warned drivers of commercial vehicles to be responsible and to follow the rules or face the consequences.
"We will constantly be monitoring the situation on federal and trunk roads especially roads that have never had operations conducted before this," he said.