Traffic cameras among new measures in CS Murkomen's plan to tame rampant road accidents

The Ministry of Transport now says it is in the advanced stages of implementing its road safety measures to arrest the rampant tragic road accidents across the country.

Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen says the directives issued in early April if fully implemented will save lives across the country.

The latest tragic road accident in Nairobi’s Karen area has served to return the spotlight on the knee-jerk measures that successive governments have taken to address the road carnage that continues to rob the country of vibrant lives and maims thousands yearly.

“We can get the numbers of deaths from such accidents, but what we don’t usually get is the numbers of people who die by getting hit by motorists on the roads,” Murkomen said.

Just last month, the Ministry of Transport issued yet another set of measures that the CS said would be implemented as a matter of urgency to curb road accidents across the country.

According to the ministry all institutions and companies were given two weeks to present vehicles for compliance checks, especially for the speed limiter, the same was required of all PSVs and commercial vehicles, but this category was given thirty days to comply or risk getting their NTSA issued licenses revoked.

The National Police Service and the NTSA were also required to enforce random checks on vehicles on the road at night.

PSVs were also required to adhere to the set number of passengers and those found carrying excess passengers would be detained and charged.

NTSA was also tasked with outsourcing motor vehicle inspection amongst other measures.

But so far little if any of the measures seems to have been effected. Murkomen says the process of actualising these preventive measures is underway.

“We have tried in the ministry, we are privatising law enforcement by using cameras and we are in the advanced process of procuring cameras,” he said.

Murkomen says the ministry in conjunction with the national police and NTSA is now even more keen on ensuring that road safety measures are observed without fail.

“We are trying to do car inspection, we are privatising car inspection, we have returned NTSA on the roads responsibility of drivers,” the CS added.

But beyond the enforcement of the measures, the ministry is also urging individual motorists to exercise caution and care for their personal and passengers’ safety and play their role in reducing road carnage.