The recklessness of public service vehicle drivers is not only alarming, it has gotten out of control.
And the only reason they have been handed the licence to kill is because the National Transport and Safety Authority has failed, disastrously, in performing its role as a road safety agent.
Matatu Sacco managers and their drivers know, only too well, that even if their fleets kill and maim passengers, nothing will be done. They simply bribe the right officers with the right sums, and NTSA and the ubiquitous traffic police officers will look the other way.
NTSA long forgot the very effective deterrent measures that include suspending an entire fleet’s licence in the event one vehicle causes a fatal accident.
The NTSA launched a very aggressive speed governor drive a few years ago. But that too seems to have been abandoned.
PSV crews have found a method to either disable or override the gadgets at the expense of the lives of passengers whose only crime was to have boarded a vehicle whose driver is so blinded by the payment of a few thousand shillings at the expense of their own lives and of the people in their vehicles.
The traffic police and the NTSA must surely get out their self-imposed slumber and save lives.
Quote of the Day: “Tyranny over the mind is the most complete and most brutal type of tyranny; every other tyranny begins and ends with it.”
Milovan Djilas
The Yugoslavian politician and writer died on April 20, 1995
