- Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said the high number of accidents involving learners are concerning.
- The regulations, he noted, will ensure the safety of students as school heads will be able to reign in indiscipline drivers.
Image: Alice Waithera
@Alicewangechi
The Ministry of Transport will soon gazette regulations that will require schools to monitor school buses during trips.
Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has said the regulations will make it mandatory for schools to install vehicular telematics that will make it possible to observe how the buses are driven.
The regulations, he noted, will ensure the safety of students and enable school heads to rein in indiscipline drivers.
The regulations will make schools accountable on how they manage drivers and maintain the vehicles.
Murkomen said when he made the announcement that vehicles would be required to be fitted with the technology after the Londiani accident that claimed 52 lives last year, he constituted a team that is finalising the standards for the right telematics that will be installed in vehicles.
The CS said previously, trucks would also cause a lot of accidents that have since reduced since some transport companies installed them with telematics complete with dash cameras.
“These companies are able to monitor their drivers from Mombasa to Malaba and even Kampala. If a driver is allowed to sleep over, they are able to call and instruct them to stop.”
Murkomen who spoke at Mugoiri Girls High School in Murang’a county said about 3,500 people lost their lives in road accidents by 2012 but the number has since shot up to about 4,400 this year.
“These are lives, our friends. Road safety is not a joke. Transportation of students is even more concerning. We have gotten to a point where the ministry has to set the rules and standards to ensure everybody is safe.”
He said once the regulations are done, an announcement will be made together with the Ministry of Education on how all the school vehicles will mandatorily install the technology.
The ministry, he said, is working with Safaricom to come up with a technology that is affordable to the schools.
“Once done, when a bus is taking students out of the school, principals will have someone in the control room checking how the driver is driving and whether there is any mischief, and the students will be protected."
He said when he was appointed as the CS, he announced that speed cameras would be installed on roads and that cameras have been set up in various corners of the country in the pilot phase.
“When we roll it out, we want instant fining of drivers who are overlapping, over speeding or committing road offences. Motorists will be getting their fines on their phones,” said the CS.
He noted that providing a solution to road carnage has been a toll order for subsequent governments and that it is not enough to deploy police officers or even NTSA onto the roads.
This, he said, is because majority of the accidents are as a result of recklessness and failure to maintain vehicles.
Murkomen further urged Kenyans to help manage rogue drivers by calling out drivers driving recklessly.
Since NTSA was allowed to get back on roads, the CS said the number of road accidents reported in the last two weeks have declined.