He said the NTSA was also in the final stages of developing regulations that would govern the operations of heavy commercial vehicles/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 4 – The National Safety and Transport Authority on Monday announced that it would soon be entering a Memorandum of Understanding with insurers that would see, of those that qualify, only inspected vehicles covered.
NTSA Director General Francis Meja who was responding to the killing of four in a road accident involving a lorry, “that did not have a valid inspection sticker,” in Ndenderu on Sunday evening, said the measure should result in greater compliance.
“I don’t see why we should not interchange our databases between ourselves and the insurance industry. This idea of timing them on the road then when they see you they use panya (backroad) routes is not sustainable.”
He said the NTSA was also in the final stages of developing regulations that would govern the operations of heavy commercial vehicles.
“In the recent past majority of the accidents that we have seen you’ll find a lorry, heavy commercial vehicle involved and without any form of regulations, or even licensing, there is very little that one can do.”
He said the Authority would also be committing a significant portion of its budgetary allocation this financial year, on road user education.
He said the spate of road accidents witnessed in the last few weeks were attributable to road user negligence and said the public needed to take greater personal responsibility for its safety as opposed to expending all its energy on evading the law enforcers.
“You don’t buckle your seat belt for me, it’s your own life you put in danger when you drink and drive, it’s not my life the matatu operators puts at risk when they overload their vehicles and overlap at high speeds; so why should I care about your life more than you? Don’t you realise how totally ridiculous it is then for us to play cat and mouse games? Instead we focus all our energy on Whatsapp groups created specially to avoid alcoblow.”
Just over the weekend, eight people — the majority of them Kenyatta University students — were killed in a road accident in Kisii and four in the aforementioned accident in Ndenderu when a lorry whose breaks are suspected to have given way, rammed into 14 other vehicles.
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