Over 150 accidents involving food delivery riders from March to June 2020

More than 150 road accidents involving food delivery riders on motorcycles were recorded from March to June 2020, according to statistics from the Social Security Organisation (Socso).

Azlan Darus, who heads the prevention, medical and rehabilitation division, said the expansion of the gig economy and ride-hailing services during the Covid-19 crisis had led to the increase in accidents involving e-hailing riders.

“The number kept increasing and by the end of the year, more and more crashes were happening.

“For these reasons, work-related safety is an important issue that needs to be tackled in terms of protection, and also prevention,” he said during the Vision Zero Webinar Series: Work-Related Road Safety today.

The webinar was jointly organised by Socso and the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research as part of their initiative under Vision Zero Malaysia.

In his keynote speech, Azlan said commuting accidents had increased almost 83% in the past 10 years from 20,810 road crashes in 2009 to 38,142 in 2019. Meanwhile, the number of fatalities was three times higher than those caused by industrial accidents in 2020.

Azlan said Socso’s social studies showed that over 55% of accidents involving employees occurred within 5km of their workplace while 65% of commuting crashes involved young people under the age of 40, of whom 80% were male workers.

“Most of the accidents occurred because of fatigue and rushing to reach the destination on time. Each year, more than RM1 billion in compensation was provided for injuries and deaths due to road crashes.

“However, the impact of crashes goes deeper. Beyond the monetary aspect of compensation, it triggers psychological and social impacts on the family and society,” he said.