No plans for age limit for Malaysian drivers, says Loke

PUTRAJAYA: While age may be a worry, there are no plans to place a cap on the age of Malaysian drivers, says Anthony Loke.

The Transport Minister acknowledged that there had been calls to impose an age limit on drivers to prevent accidents.

“There have been proposals but we have to be practical and give proper consideration before any decision is made,” he told a press conference here on Monday (July 1).

He was asked to comment on a Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) road safety study done in 2023 which revealed that about 30% of drivers above 60 were still active on the road.

Loke said that while age was a factor, he said that there are other reasons against imposing a “cut-off limit”.

“Tun Dr Mahathir is 99 and he still drives.

“Even my father still drives,” he said.

He said that it would be difficult to impose a ban on senior citizens driving.

This was especially so if the senior citizen lives in rural areas or needs to get around during emergencies, he added.

Meanwhile, Loke announced that checks on driving school vehicles have been changed to once annually instead of once every six months.

He said the annual scheduled inspections were for vehicles 10 years or newer, while scheduled inspections would be done once every six months on driving school vehicles that were more than 10 years old.

To encourage driving schools to replace their existing fleet with new vehicles, Loke added that scheduled inspections would only be carried out once every three years for new cars.