Corporate Accountability and Systemic Reform in Malaysia’s Transport Sector: Lessons from the Post-Gerik Tragedy

Road safety in Malaysia continues to face systemic challenges despite the Malaysia Road Safety Plan (2022–2030) and alignment with the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety. The Gerik bus tragedy of June 2025, which resulted in fifteen deaths and thirty-three injuries, revealed not only the proximate causes of excessive speed and poor visibility but also broader institutional gaps in accountability, enforcement, and infrastructure management. This study adopts a qualitative design combining semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis, and field observations to examine how accountability is allocated within Malaysia’s transport sector and what reforms are feasible. Thirty stakeholders representing government agencies, legal experts, bus operators, infrastructure auditors, civil society, and victims’ families were interviewed. The findings show that accountability remains concentrated on individual drivers, while corporate negligence often escapes sanction. Road safety audits identify risks but lack binding responsibilities, budgets, and timelines for closure. Vehicle maintenance and occupant protection are uneven, and enforcement remains episodic rather than continuous. Comparative insights from the United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore illustrate that corporate liability laws, chain of responsibility frameworks, and star-rating benchmarks can reshape safety culture and governance. This study recommends an integrated reform pathway: transparent metrics and closure tracking, continuous compliance conditions tied to operator licensing, and corporate liability provisions to secure board-level accountability. These measures would move Malaysia beyond reactive enforcement and align its transport governance with proven international practices. The study contributes to scholarship and policy by linking legal accountability, engineering interventions, and institutional delivery capacity.