CCTV State

"Prevention is better than cure", as they said. When it comes to crime prevention, nothing is better than the state-of-the-art Closed-circuit television (CCTV), apart from good policing.

You can say the developed countries in Europe and America are becoming paranoids to terrorist attacks since the historical 911 in New York. The London bombing on 7 July 2005 saw the terrorists successfully captured and sentenced with all the evidences, thanks to the CCTV. In a country like United kingdom (U.K.) where it’s the land of laws & orders, the deployment of CCTV has shown to be the most appropriate tool and aligning well with the policy of combating terrorism at its nib.

CCTVs are installed everywhere, public or private, day or night, watching and recording the activities of the residents in the U. K. The coverage is not on fixed properties only; the moving assets like buses, trains, tubes, and even taxis are installed and monitored on-line via wireless linkages. Taxi drivers in Sabah may welcome this as it could protect them from robbers.

The authority is so serious and confident about the technology that they have had deployed the gadgets almost any possible areas in the public; criminals and would-be offenders are virtually not having any chance to get away from crimes or offends without apprehended and prosecuted.

What a way to make the residents behaved, and reducing damages to public properties which I think will especially suitable in Malaysia where peoples are not seen or recorded when deliberately causing damages, and therefore not being nabbed and made to pay for their actions.

We have many crime cases not solved for years and quite often there were no traces and clues at the crime scenes or related scenes; and with the CCTV widely installed, clues and traces of information could have been left at the incidence. It’s therefore not difficult to pin down the culprits in the shortest time before all the evidences are lost.

The London Bombing is a typical success story of the application of CCTV system. DBKK, district Councils, or Government should aggressively invest in the application of CCTV as a means to protect not only lives, but public assets on a long term basis as well. The saving on less infrastructure damages may recover easily the investment costs within the first year or so.

Security is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. By the way, do we have the political will strong enough to do it?

U. K. Driving Experience and Melaka Traffic Jam

The easy & relax living in Malaysia is a luxury in United Kingdom, that’s what I personally experienced lately.

The British walks a lot every day because they can’t afford to have their car driving through the city centre and park right next to their office/destination; so they park their vehicles at the outskirt of the city and take a public transport such as bus, tube, or train instead.

There are two advantages of leaving their cars at the outskirt car park. One is cost-saving on exorbitant parking fee in the centre, and secondly is saving the time of searching for a parking space, especially new drivers who are not familiar with the city centre.

With every one leaving their car outside the city centre, the chaos of jams caused by snails of cars searching for car parks in the city is eliminated. For the drivers, this is a relief and stress reduction indeed.

On top of the above advantages, they are now reducing the gas emission in the city centre as stalling vehicles emitting fumes and gases as well as wasting the pricey petrol. They revitalize the city air quality and at the same time raise the quality of life in the city centre by making the traffic flows smoothly. Taxi and bus are the major transports in the city centre serving their main task of moving peoples in and out of the city the fastest they could. Their drive ways are clear all the time; life in the city centre has become lively and enjoyable.

On the contrary, last week I was in Melaka and the coach driver was “kind” enough to choose the town centre route that brought us through the historical tourism spots of the city state; we were stuck in the area for almost 2 hours! The distance is very short though, only a few kilometers long!

The authority in Melaka or Malaysia should resolve the traffic jam issue quickly. We have been focusing mostly on the development of “hardware” but the “software” aspect seems to have been overlooked some what.

It’s only a matter of planning and arrangement.