Road and Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen on Wednesday, April 19 announced new measures to curb increased road crashes in Kenya.
In a statement, Murkomen stated that School vans, buses, and matatus that are unroadworthy will be removed from the roads with immediate effect.
He directed school transportation to be allowed between 5 am and 10 pm and for students to be allocated seats with functional seatbelts.
“School transportation shall not be allowed to operate between 10pm and 5am in line with the Traffic (Amendment) Act, 2017, effective immediately. All school children MUST be allocated seats with functional seatbelts put on at all time,” read the statement in part.
Murkomen stated that the Intelligent Road Safety Management System (IRSMS) will be implemented immediately to ensure all heavy commercial vehicles weighing 3049 kilograms and above are fitted with speed limiters.
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The transport CS directed speed limiter vendors to install approved gadgets that will limit speeds and record speed data after every five seconds.
“In compliance with KS 22932018 all the 57 licensed speed limiter vendors MUST install approved gadgets that will limit speed, record speed data after every 5 seconds, transmit data to both the NTSA and the vendor servers and report violations in real-time,” he stated.
Murkomen also revealed that a multi-agency clinic shall be formed to ensure public service vehicles operate with functional speed limiters,
“To ensure all public service vehicles operate with functional speed limiters, a multi-agency clinic shall be formed to verify and validate ALL speed limiters from 25th April 2023 to 31st May 2023. All stakeholders including public transport operators, speed limiter vendors and the National Police Service will be incorporated into this multi-agency exercise,” Murkomen added.
He further directed the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA), Kenya Urban Road Authority (KURA) and the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) to complete the ongoing road safety audits on all blackspots and ensure safety interventions.
Additionally, he instructed the road agencies to ensure cameras have been installed at all blackspots.
