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| From left: Kebs acting Managing Director Bernard Nguyo, NTSA Director General Francis Meja and Chief Mechanical and Transport Engineer Charles Nzuka during a media briefing on guidelines for licensing of speed limiter suppliers into the country. PHOTO | MARTIN MUKANGU | MEDIA GROUP |
All suppliers of speed limiters, popularly known as speed governors have until next week to comply with new regulations with an aim to reduce accidents caused by speeding Public Service Vehicles (PSVs).
Speaking during a joint briefing by the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) and the Chief Mechanical Transport Engineer, NTSA director-general Francis Meja said that suppliers now have to stock devices that can transmit data to the NTSA servers.
“Implementation of the revised speed device standard KS 2295:2018 takes effect from December 1, 2018. Motor vehicles owners will be expected to upgrade their speed governors to the current standard on or before March 1, 2019,”Mr Meja said.
POOR QUALITY
Following complaints by the Matatu Owners Association last week that poor quality speed governors are supplied to unsuspecting owners, acting Kebs Managing Director, Bernard Nguyo affirmed all speed governors are tested and certified to be of high quality.
He blamed rogue matatu operators for tampering with the devices, leading to accidents.
“With these new standards, it will be very easy to tell if a speed limiter has been tampered with. We know that some drivers have put switches on theirs, turn them off when they want to speed and only turn them on when they see police. These new ones will tell us if it has been tampered with, because the information will be getting to our servers in real time,” Mr Meja said.
SPEEDING VEHICLE
He added that the authority will no longer have to wait for an accident to happen in order to determine that it was caused by a speeding vehicle.
He added that the devices will be linked to the drivers’ licenses, and if a driver is found to have interfered with a device, his license will be withdrawn. This also limits the number of people who can drive the vehicles.
“We shall also be carrying out inspections of all suppliers’ offices and making sure they have fitting centres,” Mr Meja said, implying that in the past suppliers have been operating without physical addresses for fitting of the devices.
He added that since the crackdown on matatus earlier this month, 22,000 people who had previously been operating without licenses have since applied and supplied with the documents. Over 4000 vehicles were on the road without the proper papers.