Why there’s increase in school bus accidents; Motorists Association
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Motorists Association of Kenya Chairman blames NTSA over increase in school bus accidents
Motorists Association of Kenya Chairman blames NTSA over increase in school bus accidents.
Motorists Association of Kenya (MOA) Chairperson Peter Murima has pointed an accusatory finger towards the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) over a spike in accidents across the country.
In an interview with local media, Murima narrowed down to the recent increase in accidents involving school buses explaining that lack of a code of conduct for the sector may have contributed to the carnage.
He further accused NTSA of failing to carry out thorough inspections of vehicles to weed out unroadworthy types and lower the number of crashes.
“You see we are having so many school bus accidents, these are because there is no policy from the Ministry apart from painting them yellow. When a vehicle embarks on a journey, there is a way it is supposed to have met the daily and weekly checking which NTSA is not doing,” he explained.
“For your information, NTSA is no longer doing vehicle inspection. They are only collecting money for booking and when you go to Likoni Road, you will find that there is no inspection at all. They only have sporadic roadside checks and those are supposed to be done by qualified engineers, not those you find on the roads.”
“We need competent school bus drivers but as an association, we need to make sure that they self-regulate. We are supposed to ensure that all school buses and fleet owners must have a code of conduct,” he added.
Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen, in a four-page directive announcing a crackdown in the transport sector, indicated that the Ministry was working on introducing CCTV cameras inside school buses for easy monitoring.
The CS further mandated all driving schools to ensure that their graduates are tested to ensure they are medically fit before receiving driving licenses.
Whereas Murima, who heads the association with over 300 members, is optimistic about reining in some drivers, he argued that some may be cheeky to switch on and off at will like in the speed governors era where they were tampered with.
“We had the speed governors story and some were tampered with and the CCTV cameras is just a matter of switching them on and off. Let’s be optimistic that the cameras will help to some extent and record the driver’s behaviour,” he added.
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“Driving task requires a very fit person medically and so we support good vision. We have cases that are supposed to be detected like drivers of school buses should not have contagious diseases. But if they base their test of eyesight on reading, they are going to deny many deserving drivers. They should involve the associations.”
Murima also opposed the reintroduction of NTSA officers on roads, a directive that Murkomen issued reversing an earlier move by former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s regime to kick them off the road.
“We are opposed to NTSA getting on the road because it will create confusion. They are not mandated by law to do traffic law enforcement.
When NTSA was on the road, that was when we had a lot of trouble because they were not experienced in road matters. The police are the best placed,” he remarked.
“We are supposed to have certain disciplines that NTSA is not enforcing from the policy angle. It is common knowledge that some drivers have bought their licenses and driving schools are producing half-baked drivers. When we have a good minister, road accidents will decrease.
There is a lot of lawlessness in the PSV sector because right now they do not have a policy or a code of conduct.”
In the past week alone, an accident involving a Kenyatta University bus claimed the lives of 11 individuals while a crash of the Kapsabet Boys High School bus left 2 dead and several others nursing serious injuries.
There have been more than five school bus accidents since January 2024.
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