The Road Safety Department (Headquarters) was established in the year 2004 through the Warrant of Occupation Bill. K 78 (or Waran Perjawatan Bil K. 78), dated September 15, 2004, which was issued by Ministry of Finance, Malaysia. Prior to this, JKJR conducted a restructuring exercise via the Warrant of Occupation Bil. K 37, dated May 11 2006. At this mentioned time, the Public Service Department (or Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam) approved the establishment of state based JKJR offices with an overall designation of ninety-eight (98) positions and one (1) additional position of Assistant Statistical Officer (or Penolong Pegawai Perangkaan) based at JKJR’s Headquarters. In addition, on February 16, 2007, an Occupation Warrant for the allocation of fourteen (14) drivers for the use of state based JKJR offices was approved. Currently, there are thirty-two (32) similar positions at the JKJR Headquarters whilst the state JKJR offices have 112 drivers.

At present, JKJR is facing severe challenges in its quest to implement targeted programs which were planned and prescribed under the 5 Year Plan (or Rancangan 5 Tahun). Within a year of its establishment, JKJR have successfully reduced the ratio of road fatalities from 4.2 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles in the year 2005 to 3.95 per 10,000 registered vehicles in the following year. In addition, JKJR’s efforts have successfully managed to reduce the number of ‘minor accidents with injuries’ to 11,454 between the years 2005 and 2006 in comparison to 31,429 and 19,884 incidents in similar category in the years 2005 and 2006 respectively.

The Department has also outlined the Malaysian Road Safety Plan 2006 – 2010 that was subsequently launched by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Y.A.B. Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi soon after Y.A.B. presided over the Cabinet Committee Meeting on Road Safety that was held on May 15, 2006.