When Mahiaddin alias Muhyiddin says he does not mind general public calls him a “stupid prime minister”, he was actually playing reverse-psychology. He was not stupid at all. In fact, the cunning and power-hungry man was very clever, at least that was the tactic. Inviting people to call him stupid would give a fake impression that he was a humble man, willing to be insulted.

 

The tactic would allow people, especially the increasing number of Malay voters who were angry at the clueless, incompetent and corrupt regime, to release steam. However, it could backfire. Ignorant Malays, too dumb to realize the reverse-psychology game plan, would now think Muhyiddin is stupid. Smarter Malays, meanwhile, are more convinced than ever that the PM is indeed stupid.

 

But even if people do not think Muhyiddin is stupid, they are absolutely certain that the backdoor Perikatan Nasional government is stupid. Either way, the prime minister might have jinxed his own regime. A day after he welcomed people to scold his government or call him a stupid prime minister for mishandling the Coronavirus pandemic, the country’s LRT trains crashed.

On Monday (May 24), two light rail trains (LRT) which stunningly travelled in opposite directions but on the same track collided in an underground tunnel near the Petronas Twin Towers in the capital city Kuala Lumpur. The collision – the worst disaster in the history of LRT since its operations started in 1996 – injured 213 passengers with at least 47 severely hurt.

 

To pacify the already angry people over the “stupidity” of the government, public transport operator Prasarana Malaysia Bhd has quickly offered RM1,000 compensation package to all the 213 passengers affected. Apparently, the collision happened between an empty carriage (travelling at 20-kmh) and another one carrying passengers (running at 40-kmh).

 

The burning question that everyone is asking – exactly how could two trains travelling in opposite directions were on the same track? Dang Wangi police chief Mohamad Zainal Abdullah has blamed the “head-on” collision between the driverless passenger train with an empty manually-driven train on “miscommunication” at the control centre.

Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong, while promising to set up a task force to investigate the disaster, said yesterday that the collision happened while the empty carriage was on a test run. He said – “One carriage was travelling at 20-kmh and another at around 40-kmh when the collision happened, and this caused a significant jolt that threw some passengers out of their seats.”

 

Interestingly, Mr Wee today said a preliminary investigation has found that the collision of two LRT trains on the Kelana Jaya line is due to negligence. Blaming the driver who was manually driving “Train 40”, the transport minister said the driver was ordered to manually drive the coach from the Kampung Baru station towards the Dang Wangi station due to the faulty automated system.

 

However, the driver allegedly had driven the train in the wrong direction. Instead of heading on the southbound line towards the Dang Wangi station, he drove it on the northbound line towards the Gombak depot instead, causing the collision between Train-40 and Train-81, which was carrying 213 passengers. Pointing finger at human error appears to be the easiest way out.

If what the minister said is true, which is not, exactly why hadn’t the command centre realized the mistake before the disaster happened? After a quarter of a century – 25 years – the LRT system has been operational, does Wee Ka Siong expect people to believe that there isn’t any centralized monitoring system to detect or alert for any abnormal activities?

 

Without a centralized control or monitoring system in place, how did the driverless passenger Train-81 operate in the first place, not to mention the arrangement for periodic and schedule maintenance. It didn’t make sense that after 25 years, this is the first time a silly driver had failed to differentiate north and south without triggering the system of an incoming crash.

 

Should not there be a failsafe system in place, considering Rapid Rail is managing a whopping 149 stations throughout a 151 kilometre rail line? The government should stop insulting people’s intelligence as if we were living in the 1800s, where train robberies often occurred in the American Old West. If it runs an automatic ticket collection system and driverless carriages, there must be a central control system.

After all, the train driver must have had received his instruction from the command centre – not any Tom, Dick or a hamster – to manually drive the train. Is the Malaysian LRT system so ancient and fragile that anyone can take control of the train, divert it to any track and crash it in an act of terrorism without a computer system to trigger a circuit breaker to stop it? Where’s the standard opeating procedures (SOP)?

 

This brings back the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014, where the military was too lazy and incompetent to scramble fighter jets stationed at air force bases in Penang to intercept the MH-370, despite having noticed it on the military radar. Embarrassingly, the military had to go back to radar recording to check – 4 days after MH370 had flown away unchallenged.

 

At the top management level, was there not a single risk assessment being carried out by the crisis management team of Prasarana Malaysia, which operates the system, after 25 years in operation? Prasarana Chairman Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, once known as “The Six Million Dollar Man” and one of the most corrupt UMNO warlords, was visibly absent after the collision.

So, was the disaster caused by miscommunication at the control centre as suspected by the police, or human error as claimed by Minister Wee, or simply internal incompetence as hinted by Tajuddin when he tried to buy the 213 victims’ silence with a pathetic RM1,000 in compensation? Perhaps there wasn’t anyone at the command centre, the same way MH-370 disappeared unnoticed on the military radar.

 

In reality, this is not the first time train mishaps due to mismanagement and incompetence have occurred since 1996. Journalist David Chelliah was knocked unconscious after a 14-kg Monorail wheel dropped on his head in 2002. Four years later (2006), a portion of an empty LRT coach was left dangling 25 metres above the ground when it overshot the LRT terminal.

 

In 2007, two coaches in the middle of the LRT train derailed while approaching the Sentul Timur station, trapping 10 passengers in 5 trains at several locations. In 2008, four passengers suffered injuries when an LRT train rammed the back of another train when it abruptly halted. In 2015, two trains suffered brake system failures due to a design issue, leaving passengers stranded for 20 minutes.

In 2018, LRT service in the Klang Valley was hit by technical glitches twice within 12 hours during the morning and evening rush hours due to unstable signalling. The next year, a signal fault in the Vehicle Control Centre (VCC) caused more than two-hour delay on the LRT Kelana Jaya Line. There were no announcements whatsoever about the breakdown, leaving commuters confused and angry.

 

For years, people have been putting their lives at risk without any accountability from Prasarana, let alone the government. But this time, heads must roll and big guns must be held responsible instead of playing the same old game of finger pointing. Highly-paid Tajuddin must be fired, if not Transport Minister Wee. In the same breath, all the victims should sue the backdoor government.

 

To make matters worse, the crash happened just hours before the tightening of MCO 3.0 lockdown kicks off. As a result, the ill-thought SOP to reduce passenger capacity by half and also lowered train frequency has caused passenger congestion at most stations during the rush hour today. Of course, ministers do not take trains to work, hence they were clueless about the people’s suffering.

 

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May 25th, 2021 by financetwitter

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