David Kiarie, the Chairperson of the Road Safety Association of Kenya, on Wednesday, July 5, called on the Ministry of Transport and the National Transport and Safety Association (NTSA) to tighten vehicle inspection in the country to avert road carnages.
Speaking to a section of the media, the Road Safety Chairperson accused some motorists of unlawfully colluding with transport sector officials to obtain inspection certificates.
Kiarie claimed that the association had received numerous reports where motorists only take photos of their vehicles and then share data obtained from speed limiters with inspection officers.
The officers then allegedly use the data to give the motorists the inspection certificates without physically visiting the inspection centres approved by the Ministry of Transport.
"Vehicles are not going for inspection. Today, matatus are the only vehicles which are going for inspection. Some are just told to share a picture of the vehicle and then share the transmission data, then a vehicle is cleared," the Road Safety Chairperson claimed.
"Why did we remove the inspection sticker at the windscreen? Because that will help the enforcer on the road to know whether a vehicle has gone for inspection or not," Kiarie insisted.
Kiarie thus called on CS Murkomen to seal loopholes used to beat inspection directives to reduce road accidents in the country. The Road Safety Chairperson attributed the recent cases of road accidents particularly where brake failures has been cited as the cause, to a lack of proper inspection.
Besides inspection, the Road Safety Association advocated for re-testing drivers in the country, insisting that it was key to re-skilling them. He also advocated fitting all public service vehicles and heavy commercials with speed limiters that transmit data to NTSA.
To increase traffic rules enforcement, Kiarie also advised CS Murkomen to give specific roles to NTSA and police officers to avoid clashing of roles and causing confusion on the road.
On Tuesday, July 4, Murkomen revealed a raft of measures which will be used to curb road accidents in the country. The former Elgeyo Marakwet Senator announced that all PSVs and school vehicles will have a dashboard camera and telematics.
"Telematics will have a GPS system showing where a vehicle will be at any particular time, it will have a black box recorder that will be transmitting the speed of every vehicle at every time.
"It will show the location of every vehicle and show when and who maintained the vehicle. It will show where the vehicle was serviced and who serviced the vehicle," he stated.
Murkomen further announced upscaling of vehicle inspection exercises and driver re-testing.
