The rules proposed by Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia provide that no person shall be allowed to run a boda boda business unless their Sacco is registered with the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA)
“A person shall not operate a two-wheeled or three-wheeled motorcycle taxi without being a member of a body corporate that is validly registered with the Authority as a motorcycle taxi operator,” the regulations read.
The rules provide that the Sacco would comprise 100 members and will provide NTSA with a copy of the registration and a list of owners of the motorcycles and their registration numbers that are in the Sacco.
The Transport ministry has also sought to make it illegal for boda boda riders to pass between rows of stationary motor vehicles slowed by traffic jams, known as lane splitting.
Riders will stand barred from moving at a speed beyond that of the vehicles they are passing between, in case the cars are in motion.
“Every rider of a three-wheeled or two-wheeled motorcycle shall not lane-split where other motor vehicles are travelling at a speed exceeding ten kilometres per hour,” the rules read.
Lane splitting, as per the National Transport and Safety Authority (Operation of Motorcycles) (Amendment) Regulations, 2022, would also be banned in public road junctions, interchanges, turnoffs, or highway entries and near exits.
According to the rules, boda boda Saccos would also be required to report within 24 hours, any accidents involving their registered motorbikes and Tuk Tuks that result in death.
The operators would also be required to report any incident “involving sexual assault or grievous bodily harm by any member of a motorcycle taxi operator (Sacco).”
Boda boda Saccos would also be required to provide a list of registration numbers of the riders operating under its name and the geographical area of operation.
“A motorcycle taxi operator shall when required so to do, submit to the NTSA in the prescribed manner a list of motorcycle riders operating under the body corporate,” the rules read.
In a reprieve to motorcycle operators, the government has sought to remove the requirement for boda boda helmets to be strictly yellow and to be inscribed with the registration number of the attendant motorcycle.
The existing law is that no motorcycle shall be sold or transferred by any person without two helmets with the registration number indelibly printed on both sides of the helmet.
The law requires every owner of a motorbike to ensure that the helmets provided for bikes used for the boda boda business are yellow.
App-hailing cabs – popularly known in Kenya as Uber, would also be subject to the new rules that cap the commission paid to drivers at 18 per cent.
“The commission which shall be paid by a transport network driver or a transport network owner to the transport network company, which shall not exceed eighteen per cent of the total earnings of the trip,” the rules read.
The National Transport and Safety Authority (Transport Network Companies, Owners, Drivers and Passengers) Regulations, 2022, also require app-hailing taxi operators to ensure the safety of their passengers as well as their private data.
Drivers found culpable of criminal conduct, causing death by accident, sexual misconduct, drunk driving, assault or batter or verbal abuse would be deregistered from the app-hailing network.
Vehicles older than 16 years would not be allowed to provide app-hailing services in the new rules and would be required to have a valid certificate of roadworthiness.
Taxi drivers would be required to pin their identity – similar to a PSV badge, at conspicuous points in the vehicle offering the service.
For passengers, the new rules bar them from using obscene language, smoking in the taxi car, spitting, throwing out the trash, and failing to pay the set fares.
Existing operators would be required to comply with the new rules within 90 days of the commencement of the regulations.
Boda boda operators have been under sharp focus amid concerted efforts by the government to contain the excesses of some of the members of the sector.
Although there is no official database with an exact number of motorcycles in the boda boda business, it is estimated there are slightly above one million riders.
The 2021 Economic Survey Report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that newly registered motorcycles increased from 217,425 in 2019 to 252,600 in 2020 – a growth of about 16 per cent.
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