Negeri Sembilan JPJ director Hanif Yusabra Yusuf said the highest number of notices issued during the special Chinese New Year operation was for not wearing seat belts, with 195 such offences recorded.

Of these, over 30% were found to be using the accessory, which resembles a real seat belt buckle.

“We found over 30% of drivers prefer to wear the dummy buckle to silence the sound of the seat belt reminder, and their excuse is that it (the seat belt) is uncomfortable or that they forgot… but that is a major offence because it can result in severe injury or death in the event of a road crash.

“The use of this accessory is seen to be widespread and becoming a trend these days, and that is not a good sign. We need to pay immediate attention to this matter,” he told reporters at the Senawang toll plaza.

Hanif Yusabra also said that JPJ had found an increased awareness of safety among bus drivers through the deployment of undercover officers on a total of 70 buses.

However, he said there were still drivers who committed offences while driving, including by continuously driving on the right lane (31 cases), picking up and dropping off passengers at unauthorised stops (12 cases), lacking a second driver (10 cases), using mobile phones (three cases), smoking (two cases), and not maintaining a log book (four cases).

He said action was taken against 24 buses, with 38 notices issued for non-compliance with the Road Transport Act 1967 and 12 given under the Land Public Transport Act 2010.

“In terms of conduct, we see that it is improving. There are also fewer cases of drivers smoking or using handphones while driving. But there are still some who disobey the rules,” he said.