.JPG "A group of motorcyclists are pictured on Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur February 28, 2018. u00e2u20acu201d Picture by Shafwan Zaidon")
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 18 ― The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) has denied claims that it had campaigned to reduce the speed limit of motorcycles.
This follows after an article titled “60 km/h motorcycle speed limit saves lives ― Myth busted!”, which was posted on a blog in 2012, began making rounds on social media recently.
“It must also be stated that Miros was only set up in 2007 and the claim of a Miros study in 1999 is not true,” Miros said in a statement.
“Claims that Miros had used this research to promote reducing motorcycle speed limits at that time are also false,” it added.
The article titled “60 km/h motorcycle speed limit saves lives ― Myth busted!” quoted a road safety research that supposedly debunked the myth that a 60 kph speed limit on motorcycles could potentially save lives. That article had cited a 1999 research study titled "Fatal injuries in Malaysian Motorcyclists”.
Miros pointed out that the study, which was conducted by researchers from the Road Safety Research Centre and Universiti Putra Malaysia, did not correlate 60kph motorcycle speed limits to fatal accident rates.
In the journal, it is stated that the majority (35.1 per cent) of deaths from road accidents involved
motorcycles with a speed of 70 kph, followed by 24.3 per cent of deaths with motorcycles with a speed of a maximum limit of 50 kph.
"The context only states the statistics involving motorcyclists based on the speed limit.
"However, nothing is mentioned in the journal that by lowering the speed limit of a motorcycle, fatal accidents can be avoided,'' said Miros in a statement.
The blog further claimed that based on the research that was supposedly conducted by Miros, the Road Safety Department (JKJR) had launched a campaign in 2008 to reduce the speed limits of motorcycles to 60 kph.
