Despite deadline extension, only 4% of outstanding summonses settled

By DHARMENDER SINGH [The Star]
Blogger's comment follows

PUTRAJAYA: Only 4% of the 17.3 million traffic summonses still outstanding at the end of last month have been settled, despite the second extension to the 50% discount offer to clear fines, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wira Abu Seman Yusop said.

Abu Seman said despite all the repeated calls from motorists for an further extension to the Feb 28 deadline to settle summonses at a discount, only 700,000 had been settled until Monday.

"If the offenders are genuine (in their intention to settle their summonses), then they should come forward and pay the fines.

"We urge motorists who still have 16.6 million outstanding summonses to settle their fines quickly," e told a press conference here Monday.

He was commenting on the progress of payments on the fines that had been made after the Home Minister announced last week the extension to the discount period to March 10.

The extension was granted after considering grouses by offenders that their attempts to pay were hampered by extremely long queues, not enough counters and the system being down.

During the initial discount period, which began on Aug 12 last year, a total of 5.5 million summonses were paid.

Comments
1. Is this a sign of civil disobedience by Malaysians?
2. Most of the summonses are believed to be 'saman ekor' (SE).
3. SE is a baby sister of the infamous ISA: Once you are alleged to have committed an offence you are deemed guilty without recourse to trial. Therefore SE is unconstitutional.
4. Furthermore, the spirit of the ummonses as punishment, hence a deterrent, is obviously missing, for the alleged offender may be unaware of the offence he has committed and may therefore repeat the same offence many times before the summonses are served.
5. An inadvertent alleged offender is therefore unnecessarily slapped with numerous summonses which are avoidable if he were stopped and personally served the summonse at the place and time of the first incident.
6. In conclusion, SE is a wanton idea hatched by the power-that-be, already consumed by the craziness of the ISA.
7. The motive of the idea is obviously to generate money - big and fast.  That is why SE is so immoral.
8.  Bravo Malaysians!