KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 19 — This Chinese New Year, the police have taken the fight to cut down road accidents to YouTube.

The public relations unit of the Royal Malaysia Police uploaded an Ops Sikap 25 video on YouTube last Sunday, showing locations of high traffic accident spots in each state.

ACP Ramli Yoosuf, head of the Federal Police Public Relations Unit, said the video was actually produced by PLUS Expressway Berhad.

“It is just general information for the public and we believe in disseminating information through social media to reach more people. The main idea is to bring attention to high accident-prone areas so more people are aware and when they are in those areas, they will be more careful when driving,” said Ramli.

Although this is the first time they are using YouTube, the police force has taken to social media in a big way, launching their official Twitter account last September and a Facebook page the year before.

Ramli said that through social media, the police can reach out to more people directly, be it about traffic conditions or other police operations.

Last year, Ops Sikap 24 saw the accident rate go up 16 per cent with the death toll up by 18 per cent — the worst on record in all the 11 years since Ops Sikap began. There were a total of 19, 606 accidents and 289 deaths on the road during the Hari Raya season.

PLUS expects 1.4 million cars on the highways this upcoming Chinese New Year. This is a 30 per cent increase from the 1.1 million cars during non-peak festive periods.

Little wonder then that the police are using all the tools available to them to try and alert drivers to drive safely.