KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 15 — The government has disallowed motorcycle e-hailing taxi services due to the high casualty rate involving riders and its pillion passengers from road accidents in the country, said Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Henry Sum Agong.
Responding to a question by Larry S’ng (Julau-Independent), Henry said the decision was made after the government received statistics on road accidents in 2019 from the police, which recorded 64 per cent deaths from accidents or more than 3,900 from 6,167 overall deaths.
“There is no proposal to introduce e-hailing of motorcycles in terms of safety issues and risks to passengers.
“This takes into account the very high risk of safety and road accidents among riders and pillion riders in Malaysia,” he told the Dewan Rakyat.
The reply elicited negative re sponses from both S’ng and Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman (Muar-Independent).
S’ng questioned why the government did not take a cue from neighbours Thailand and Indonesia on how to implement bike-hailing services, instead of outright banning it.
Syed Saddiq meanwhile demanded Henry and the government elaborate on the decision since the previous Pakatan Harapan government in 2019 had given conditional authorisation to motorcycle taxi e-hailing services like the local Dego Ride to operate for a six-month period.
“This is the first time we are hearing about this,” said Syed Saddiq who was the youth and sports minister in the 2019 Cabinet who gave the conditional approval. He had then been lobbying for Indonesia’s Gojek to enter Malaysia.
However, Henry failed to do so, reverting to the answer that the government is always looking into matters regarding e-hailing.
“As I mentioned, the government always takes into account the needs of taxis, so far the government's decision is as I mentioned earlier,” said Henry.
Bike-hailing service Dego Ride had started a pilot project in January 2020 with then Transport Minister Anthony Loke saying the government would make a decision on the service including insurance, passenger’s safety and regulatory framework.
However, the Pakatan Harapan government collapsed and the Covid-19 pandemic meant the matter remains unresolved.
