Government bans school buses from plying at night
The government on Wednesday banned school buses from plying at night in the wake of horrific bus crashes that left six students dead and several others injured.
Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said all school buses would be banned from the roads between 10 pm and 5 am.
He said his ministry is working with other government departments and stakeholders in the transport sector to develop stringent measures to improve road safety and save lives.
“In this regard, and in line with a Cabinet directive issued on Tuesday to enhance road safety, the CS has directed that school transport will not be allowed to operate between 10 pm and 5 am, in line with the Traffic (Amendment) Act, 2017, with immediate effect,” CS Murkomen said.
He added that all schoolchildren must be allocated seats with functional seatbelts at all times.
“School vans, buses and matatus that are not roadworthy must be removed from the roads with immediate effect,” he said.
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“As part of the implementation of the Intelligent Road Safety Management System (IRSMS), all heavy commercial vehicle operators must ensure that vehicles with a tare weight of 3 049kg and above are fitted with speed limiters.”
The CS listed other new measures to curb road accidents in the country.
He said all the 57 licensed speed limiter vendors must install approved speed-limiting devices and record speed data every 5 seconds.
He said the data must also be transmitted to the NTSA and the vendors’ servers and report violations in real-time.
“To ensure that all public service vehicles operate with functional speed limiters, an inter-agency clinic will be formed to check and validate all speed limiters from 25 April 2023 to 31 May 2023,” he said.
He added that all stakeholders, including public transport operators, speed limiter manufacturers, and the National Police Service, will be involved in the multi-agency exercise.
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