Speaking during the launch of a transport road safety campaign, Machakos drivers association chairman Paul Ouma faulted National transport Safety Authority move to implement laws that have a direct impact on them but without consultation/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya Mar 31- Drivers have called for inclusion during policy making and cooperation with other players in the transport sector as a way of ensuring transport sector sanity and road safety.
Speaking during the launch of a transport road safety campaign, Machakos drivers association chairman Paul Ouma faulted National transport Safety Authority move to implement laws that have a direct impact on them but without consultation.
“NTSA does a good job but they don’t involve us during policy making and law implementation. For instance there is a road safety campaign going on but most our drivers know very little about it. If you look at it clearly the participants are not the drivers but onlookers and passersby. This is just one of the instances that we as the drivers feel left out in road and traffic initiatives,” he said.
However the chairman applauded the move by the transport authority and said this would serve to offer a platform for them to interact with the officials in the transport industry.
Ouma further lamented the move by the government to pull out NTSA officers from the road saying although they had their short comings they had aided greatly in ensuring road safety.
“We are aware that the NTSA officers were pulled off the road. I can recommend their work because they were very effective as they worked diligently in conjunction with the traffic police and enhanced safety for the road users. The drivers are not sure the politics that played into place but we were comfortable with them being on the roads. However, with them being on the road or not road safety comes first and we as an association we are focused on ensuring this,” he added.
The drivers who spoke to Capital FM News further wanted to be educated on the existing key road safety rules which they said they had always been changing.
“The road rules change each and every day with little or no communication been done. This ends us catching up with us and we end up being charged with violation of traffic laws that we are not aware of. For example we would like to know whether the rule on carrier installation on vehicles changed. This is because we are witnessing even private vehicles been installed with carriers and operating normally with us matatu operators been required to take up licenses and paying heavily to have carriers on our vehicles,” one of the drivers complained.
They however vowed to work ethically in observance with the traffic rules especially during this Easter period with most of them noting drunk driving as the major cause of road accidents.
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