In the latest crackdown on PSVs, Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has banned the use of private vehicles from operating as Public Service Vehicles.
This decision comes in the wake of a collision involving a Probox vehicle, which was carrying an unknown number of passengers along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway. The collision occurred when the Probox was involved in a head-on collision with a lorry in the Ngata area of Nakuru.
Consequently, the CS has instructed the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) to collaborate with the National Police Service (NPS) to ensure that private vehicles, especially Proboxes, Noahs, and Sientas, do not transport passengers as PSVs.
The CS maintained that this measure is part of ongoing efforts to help streamline operations in the public transport sector.
“Some motorists have developed a tendency to operate as PSVs without authorization and I promise the offenders will be prosecuted under the Traffic Act,” he warned
He made this announcement at a time when his office was facing high criticism over the ongoing road carnages and the government’s failure to ensure order on roads amid an increasing number of traffic violations.
Murkomen noted that for a private vehicle to legally operate as a PSV, it must first comply with all the mandatory regulations and compliance measures of public transport. These include payment of inspection fees and additional taxes.
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The illegally operated vehicles are notorious for overloading, often carrying as many as 10 passengers in a 5-seater car.
Murkomen instructed that all commercial and PSV vehicles must complete compliance within 30 days or face the risk of losing their licenses. He also mandated that these vehicles must be equipped with speed limiters, warning of consequences for non-compliance.
“To prevent accidents and protect lives, we hereby issue a further directive for immediate compliance with KS 2295 – 2018 on maximum road speed limiters for motor vehicles to ensure speed limiters fitted on PSVs and commercial vehicles are functional, limiting speed, storing data, transmitting speed data every five seconds and onboarded onto the NTSA Intelligent Road Safety Management System ( IRSMS).”