A very good morning to the Principal, teachers and my beloved students.

Here I stand today to give a speech entitle The rise in fatal accidents and how we can reduce them. The dramatic increase in fatal accidents involving vehicles on the road should be a cause for concern. Even our Prime Minister has commented that Malaysia has one of the highest accident rates in the world for a population of only 24 million. During the festive seasons, the nation records the highest number of fatalities involving vehicles. The tragic thing is entire families or generations are lost in a single accident. There are multiple factors as to the cause of the accidents such as to the cause of accidents such as drunk driving, negligent or reckless driving, talking or messaging on the mobile phone and exhaustion. According to police statistics, drunk driving is the major cause of the accidents in Malaysia. Despite the heavy fines and jail sentences imposed, figures on fatal accidents caused by drunk drivers continue to soar. The government has decided to impose a prohibitive fine and concurrent jail sentence to act as a deterrent. The current sum is inadequate to protect innocent lives from being lost in accidents. Mobile phone users in Malaysia have skyrocketed. Despite government regulations of criminalizing mobile phone use while driving, many have been caught talking or messaging while on the road. The meagre fine of RM300 has not deterred those who continue to do this resulting in ever increasing accidents rates. In order to be effective, the government should impose a concurrent jail term on those caught for this offence, especially if it has resulted in fatal accidents. We hope that regulations and awareness campaigns will greatly reduce the number of the road accidents and fatalities. Deaths by road accidents are a sheer waste of human lives and need to be prevented at all costs.