The government has been urged to introduce new regulations for motorcycles in a bid to address the growing concern about their use in crime.
During an interview on Citizen TV on September 11, Murang'a Senator Joe Nyutu said that the proposal was driven by the fact that motorcycles were increasingly being used to commit serious crimes.
According to the senator, motorcycles should have front number plates alongside the back ones.
He added that the front plates should be larger and more visible from a distance to enable camera systems to capture registration numbers more easily.
According to the senator, making the frontal number plate bigger will also make it easier to trace the riders whenever they are involved in crimes.
“I have been wondering whether we should not now have a front number plate and these numbers be made bigger to be easily read from a distance,” he said.
“This is because the camera system that we have, if we can capture these registration numbers by cameras, we can bring it to books because once we are able to know who the motor vehicle is registered under,” he added.
Nyutu added that the proposal would also help reduce accidents, since riders would be identified in hit-and-run cases.
“We need to think more seriously and regulate the motorcycles so that once the crime is committed by people on a motorcycle, in two to three days, we should be able to tell who was using the motorcycle,” he added.
His statement came after the killing of city lawyer Kyalo Mbobu, who was shot dead on the evening of September 9 by unknown assailants along Magadi Road.
Mbobu was attacked by two people on a motorcycle as he was headed home from a meeting at the Nairobi city centre.
According to Nyutu, if the boda boda had a number plate in the front, it would have been easy for the DCI to identify those involved in the shooting during their investigations.
