Minister of Public Works and Transport Sun Chanthol said that during the five months of the pilot scheme of driver’s licence demerit points system, traffic police officers have issued more than 36,000 fines or penalties.

While addressing a February 15 meeting to review the results of the ministry’s work in 2022 and outline its direction for 2023, Chanthol detailed the demerit points system.

“We cooperated with the Ministry of Interior to develop an app, and in September last year, we provided 300 hand-held devices to the officers. In the five months since then, they have issued fines and deducted points in 36,300 cases,” he said.

Chanthol took pride in the way the transport and interior ministries had worked together on the project.

“Using this technology to deduct points from a driver’s licence immediately at the scene of a violation is an excellent deterrent to poor driving habits, like not wearing a seatbelt, or speeding,” he said.

Despite the best efforts of the traffic officers, the minister remained concerned at the high road toll.

“At the beginning of last year, interior minister and National Road Safety Committee [NRSC] chairman Sar Kheng set the target of reducing the mortality rate to just 4.5 per day. Unfortunately, this year’s average was 4.68 per day, so 66 more Cambodians died than were considered acceptable,” he said.

Chanthol noted that new traffic laws would be submitted to the Council of Ministers for review soon, prior to being submitted to the National Assembly and Senate for final review and approval.

Kim Pagna, director of the Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation in Cambodia, said the implementation of the programme to deduct points from driver’s licences would contribute to a reduction in accidents.

“The cause of most accidents is a driver breaking the law in some way, whether it is excess speed, dangerous overtaking or driving under the influence. Strict enforcement of the law would deter drivers,” he added.

He said that to be effective, the law must be enforced widely, fairly and transparently. This would also help officers avoid criticism from the public.

Following trial, the demerit point system was fully implemented on January 1, with all drivers required to carry their licence with them. Traffic officers can use hand-held devices to scan their licence, check the current number of demerit points – if any – and add more for violation of the traffic law.