• The days of tampering with speed governors and eluding cops may soon be gone.
• New generation governors contain GPS, send constant signals, including latitude and longitude.the also send signals an set off alarms if tampered with.
Image: EUTYCAS MUCHIRI
Beware, tamperers with speed governors. Your days are numbered.
These governors send signals and set off alarms if they are tampered with.
A Nyeri company is making new-generation tamper-proof speed governors with GPS that transmits data to the police.
Ekas Technologies Limited has been making governors for 16 years but has improved its manufacturing technology and taken it to a new level that should frighten speed cheats.
The new generation of governors enables police to track any vehicle violating or reported to have violated traffic rules from their offices.
They just enter the vehicle registration number into the system to be able to see the location of the vehicle, alerting the nearest police station if it's speeding.
“This technology is so advanced that literally, these vehicles will not be going to over speed anymore," MD Wambugu Nyamu told the Star on Thursday.
He said he aims to lower the cost of fitting speed governors from Sh50,000 previously to about Sh20,000 and is optimistic prices will come down further.
Nyamu said electronic assembly technology is done in Kenya and the only way Kenya can compete with China is by being allowing duty-free import of components.
"The device sends data every five seconds to our server and to National Safety and Transport Authority (NTSA§0 servers,” the MD said.
It transmits the speed, longitude, and latitude of the vehicle, he said.
This enables police to know the speed, time, the position of the vehicle and the next building on the road.
Dealers of the speed limiters and NTSA are able to get data for the last 72 hours and the systems can store data for 30 days.
NTSA servers are supposed to store all the violations for 10 years.
If the vehicle is offline, that will be reflected in the server.
This makes it easy to track the movement of any PSV vehicle fitted with the governors.
“Even the owners of the vehicles are secure as the company or government can track the vehicle in case of a carjacking,” Nyamu said.
The governor helps reduce accidents as it can trace driving behaviour for a day or more.
Abut 2,000 governors can be produced in one day.
Speed limiter manufacturers, PSV owners and government have agreed that the new governors will be installed during regular inspections.
Owners of PSV with traffic offences must install the new governors, which Nyamu says will instil discipline.
“This is because no one wants to have his vehicle installed with the new governor; therefore, they will have to behave on the road until all the vehicles are installed.”
Fitting them gradually, he says, will avoid the crisis of 2014 when vehicles were fitted and there were mass failures of governors, complaints and stoppages.
“We do not want a lot of money. We want to do it right. Most people create a crisis by installing them in six months so that people can raise their prices. No. We want the prices to stabilise,” Nyamu said.
Abut five Kenyan companies produce speed governors.
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DIVERSITY INTO SMARTPHONES
Nyamu also said the company plans to manufacture smartphones by 2022.
Nyamu said the company has assembled a team of 10 hardware and software developers who are working on the phone.
He told the Star on Thursday that the company has already imported an SMT (Service Mount Technology) automatic assembly line used in manufacturing various electronics. The complete assembly line is Swedish and Danish technology.
The technology is very modern technology and can do service mount components and other components called Ball Grid Array (BGA), the components used in phones.
Nyamu estimates that the company directly employ more than 200 employees by October and November, which is the peak season.
This will enable them to go for foreign markets and also manufacture other products.
(Edited by V. Graham)