KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 — The Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) is planning to implement Ops Selamat in a more comprehensive way, and not limited to festive seasons, in a bid to reduce accident rates in the country.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Noor Rashid Ibrahim said it was proposed that the operations be implemented periodically.

"The operations would be implemented from time to time during non-festive seasons, especially on highways and black spots which have been identified as accident-prone areas.

"So far, the police have identified 78 black spots on federal and municipal roads around the city,” he told a press conference today.

Earlier, Noor Rashid handed over appreciation letters to motorists who displayed defensive driving and the best police contingent for the Ops Selamat 9/2016 at the South Integrated Terminal near here.

He said based on analysis, serious accidents mostly involved local drivers and not drivers returning to their hometowns for the festive celebrations.

"Although the accident rate for this year had risen by 2.6 per cent compared to last year, fatal accident rate (on the other hand) had declined and through this recent operations, police managed to save 30 lives.

"As for this comprehensive operations, the police will adopt the total enforcement and services approaches just like (the approach we used) in the recently concluded Ops Selamat,” he said.

Asked on when the operations would be implemented, Noor Rashid said it was still being discussed and the launch date had yet to be finalised.

During the Ops Selamat 9/2016 conducted from June 29 to July 13 in conjunction with Aidilfitri, a total of 8,726 accident cases were recorded in municipal roads, followed by federal roads (4,506), state roads (4,125), and highways (2,315).

A total of 299 deaths were recorded during the Ops Selamat 9/2016 as compared to 330 deaths recorded in Ops Selamat 7/2015. — Bernama