“Advisory

Service Ops”
Campaign

Previous studies done, reveals that seat belts work primarily by restraining car occupants

in the event of a crash. Without a seatbelt in a crash at 30 mph, a person will be thrown forward

with a force of between 30 and 60 times your body weight. If unbelted, car occupants may strike

parts of the car interior. An unbelted car occupant is also more likely to be thrown out of the car

if a door or a window breaks during the impact of a crash. The three point belt is best at reducing

injury as it spreads the force over a wider area and restricts occupant movement better than a lap

belt. Seat belts are also most effective in rollover accidents, frontal collisions and in lower speed

crashes particularly in urban areas.

As in Malaysia, wearing seat belts by motorist had come to force since those days. Since

it is still not adequate enough for the safety of passengers traveling on the road, Malaysian

government took more advance steps for their safety by introducing the new rear seat belt rule

which came to force recently in the year 2009. Malaysian government starts Buckle up rear

seatbelt campaign or `Advisory Service Ops' which begun from 1st June 2008 in order to create

awareness among public towards the importance of wearing seatbelt in the rear seats. These six

months campaign was done as the first step to train public towards the upcoming rear seat belt

ruling on the year 2009. The campaign was aimed to prepare the public for law change or

towards new law enforcement as well as providing drivers with adequate information about the

consequences of driving belted or unbelted. The ‘Advisory Service Ops’ participated by JPJ

(Road Transport Department) and Malaysian Royal Police (PDRM) together with The Road

Safety Department (JKJR) delivered advises for all the drivers as well as passengers who failed
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Service Ops”
Campaign

to realize the importance of wearing rear seatbelts. Additional to advises, pamphlets and stickers

related to the rear seatbelt campaign were also given.

The main message delivered through these six months rear seatbelt campaign was

wearing rear seatbelts ensure passengers safety together with the driver and thus reduce fatalities

in road accidents at the same time. The point of this whole exercise is to save lives. On the other

hand, information regarding new rear seat belt ruling which came to force since 1st January 2009

were also given. The explanation of vehicles which will be excluded from this new rear seat belt

ruling which came to force were attached together with the give away. Information given was as

follows;

• Vehicles registered before 1st January 1995

• Vehicles registered after 1st January 1995 without anchorage points

• Commercial vehicles such as taxi

• Vehicles with more than 8 seat excluding driver seat

Information regarding the compound fine and summonses were also included in the

advice. The rear seatbelt regulation which had been enforced effectively on 1st January 2009 by

Malaysian government issued a compound fine of RM300 and from July 1 2009 onwards, they

can be fined up to RM2, 000 or jailed a maximum of one year or both under the Road Transport

Act.
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Service Ops”
Campaign

The target audience for this campaign is drivers and passengers all over Malaysia,

particularly all types of passenger vehicles with a maximum capacity of 8 passengers or less

(with an exception to certain categories of vehicles).

There are different strategies used to approach both the drivers and passengers through

this rear seatbelt awareness advocacy campaign. These practices were applied until the recent

enforcement of new rear seatbelt rule and being continued with the summons and compound

fines for those who were still found failed to follow the new ruling. All the approach strategies

done were through the fear appeal tactics which includes the advices given about the

consequences that will be faced by the passengers and its impact to the drivers if they failed to

wear rear seatbelts during any collision or crash events together the law act that will be faced if

they failed to obey the rules or found to be guilty.

First strategy used was safety promotion (including a social marketing campaign and

education). Tactics used through these promotion were highlighting the campaign through the

media, exhibitions, talk shows, websites, seminars, ‘e-mailblast' and interview session with

Malaysian radio station. This tactic increases the percentage of publics to know more about the

existence of this particular advocacy campaign. For all the drivers or passenger who failed to

come across the existence of these advisory service ops lively, would be able to get the

information from all the sources used to highlight this campaign. Other tactics used to support

this safety promotion was distribution of giveaways such as pamphlets and sticker on rear

seatbelt safety to road users. All these promotion includes the information on vehicles which are
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Service Ops”
Campaign

compulsory to have rear seatbelts and vehicles which are exempted. For example owners of cars

registered from 1995 without the belts mountings have been given a three year grace period to

retrofit the rear seatbelts.

Second strategies are community based program. These community based approaches

were participated by higher association members in order to create a better level of awareness

and realization among Malaysians. Participation of The Road Safety Department (JKJR) in all

states is worked together with related agencies such as the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM), Road

Transport Department (JPJ), Road Safety Council (MKJR) and Automobile Association of

Malaysia (AAM) to promote the use of rear seatbelt. On the other hand, The Ministry of

Transport (MOT), JKJR, Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS), PDRM,

Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) commenced this advocacy campaign or

‘Advisory Service Ops’ countdown starting from 1 November 2008 until 31 December 2008 by

delivering the messages of rear seatbelt use which has been made mandatory recently on 1

January 2009. Apart from this, Proton, Perodua & Honda will be installing free rear car seatbelt.

Regardless to all this, overall approaches and strategies were supported by Malaysian Highway

corporation such as PLUS, Besraya, MTD, LITRAK and NPE.

Lastly, all the campaign and advisory services continued with the enforcement as the

final strategies to maintain the effectiveness of drivers and passengers in wearing rear seatbelts.

Followed by stern advice and warnings by enforcement officers, the availability compound fine

of RM 300 (effective from 1st Jan 2009), fine up to RM 2000, jailed a maximum of one year or
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Service Ops”
Campaign

both under the Road Transport Act completes the adequate or suffice plan to produce safe road

occupants.

From the overall feedbacks and outcomes received through this six months awareness

campaign, I totally agree that all the practices made was effective in creating realization on the

importance of wearing rear seatbelts among drivers as well as passengers. As to support to my

statement, Road Safety Department director General Datuk Suret Singh said before the campaign

was launched, that there was only about one percent use of the rear safety belt but the figure

increased to 17 percent of usage during the period of campaigning itself. On the other hand,

polling system in www.panducermat.org.my showed that from the total number of 7804 people

surveyed, 5687 people supports the rear seatbelt campaign which is 72.9% where only 2117

people that doesn’t agree with the campaign. The pie chart below shows the feedback from the

surveyed respondents in percentage.

No
27%

Yes
73%
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Service Ops”
Campaign

If I were to conduct this type of particular awareness or advisory services campaign, I

would more focused on the publicity of these particular campaign so that it reaches maximum

number of target audience. Publicity should not be done through media resources but also other

alternative sources such as mobile/cell phone and other networks that can reach large number of

population. Well publicized police enforcement campaigns have been always a key factor in

getting the road safety messages across in the community and on the road. Besides that,

giveaways should be increased rather than only giving pamphlets and stickers. Leaflets and

recognizable logo that are more interesting should be made as the handovers. Logo design

related to the campaign should be made available throughout the countries, by distributing it to

all tyre centers, petrol stations, and other road related centers. At the same time, surveys and

interview should be done more frequently in order to update the feedback of the road occupants

together with the progress of the campaign.

Without focusing only the road, I would make sure that campaign should be made

available in schools and housing area. As children and housewives as well as elderly become the

passenger of their family members who drove, they should know equally the importance of

wearing seatbelt and the consequences of not wearing the seatbelts. This would be done, to

increase the alertness among these passengers in order to advise or remind the drivers about the

rear seatbelt wearing if they failed to follow the rules or ignore it.
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Service Ops”
Campaign

If I do a media audience research on the effectiveness of this particular campaign, I prefer

to do Quantitative research method in order to analysis the effectiveness of this particular

campaign through close-ended and open-ended questions through questionnaire distribution. I

have chosen quantitative research method in order to obtain reliable result that can be

generalized to a wider population with the help of statistics. The data collected through the

questionnaire will be analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for

accurate outcomes.

Conclusively, the campaign is a success by making more than 70% of the public aware of

the importance of rear seatbelt usage including how it can help in reducing risk and severity of

injury as well as percentage of fatality. Conversely, at the current situation there was no effective

and consistent message highlighted through the media regarding this campaign by the respective

agencies and parties. It is clear that the message has reached the public through this particular

campaign but has not been translated into practice because of attitude problems. With regard to

the impending law on mandatory use of the rear seatbelt, the message has not received adequate

attention by the public. The findings of this evaluation suggest the need for inclusion of a visible

enforcement element in the program for greater impact on changing public behavior towards the

use of the rear seatbelt. There is a wide gap between the current use rate of 2.5% (August 2008)

and the national target of 80 % (by 2010) which is ambitious and challenging. Much needs to be

done if the target is to be achieved. Campaign activities may need to be strengthened and

strategies may need to be refined.