Road Safety Council of Malaysia member Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye has called for a stop-work order to be issued to a contractor following the incident where a crane arm crashed onto a car at the LRT extension project in Subang Jaya yesterday.

He said the order must be issued by the relevant authority until it was convinced that all safety measures had been taken to prevent a recurrence of such deplorable incident which was preventable if good safety practices had been adopted.

It was preferable to have some delay in the project than to have unsafe work which could lead to accidents and the loss of innocent lives, he said.

"The time has come for severe action to be taken against those responsible for this latest near fatal incident," he said in a statement here, today.

Looking at and observing the massive construction work that was being undertaken for our public transport projects, Lee said there was a lot of room for improvement in terms of ensuring road and public safety.

This was a serious matter as it affected public safety and lives were at stake, he said.

A car parked by the side of a road at USJ2/3 in Subang Jaya, near the Summit shopping center, was crushed by a crane arm from the LRT tracks construction site yesterday.