Monday December 21, 2009 Survival skills for m-cyclists By YENG AI CHUN KUALA LUMPUR: Motorcyclists will now be taught rider survival skills at selected driving institutions nationwide starting next year in order to minimise road fatalities involving them. Road Safety Department director-general Datuk Suret Singh said the ‘Rider Survival Pro-gramme’ would be a value-added module on top of the mandatory theoretical courses on highway code and practical training. “These skills would help a rider tackle unforeseen problems such as a punctured tyre, bumpy roads and facing obstacles such as sand and stones on the road. “This will be a continuous effort to change the mindset of motorcyclists and to make road safety a culture among them,” he said after launching the programme at the Perkeso building here yesterday. Suret explained that motorcyclists with the “L” (learner) licence would have to undergo training under the programme before they could be awarded the full licence. “About 60% of road fatalities in the country are made up of motorcyclists. Now with this programme, riders would not only be equipped with the highway code and practical training but also practical and survival knowledge,” he said. The programme is available free-of-charge at nationwide driving institutions under the Association of Malaysian Driving Institutes. Suret, who is also Asean Road Safety chairman, said the programme would be made a model for other Asean countries. Social Security Organisation (Socso) chief executive officer K. Selvarajah, who was also present at the launch, said the organisation received 40,916 claims under its employment injury insurance scheme for the first nine months of this year. “These claims are for occupational accidents and 19,742 claims are categorised as commuting accidents, meaning accidents that happened when commuting to and from work, 80% of which are motorcycle accidents,” he said. He said Socso paid out about RM1.8mil in compensation to subscribers last year.