Happening Now: DP Rigathi Gachagua impeachment motion tabled
Annual car inspections may do more harm
Vehicles park at the inspection yard at Industrial Area in Nairobi on the 5th of June, 2014. If we want to improve roadworthiness, those are the two main problems we must solve. Make motorists more aware of the mechanical functions and risks, and make proper repair more affordable. PHOTO/EVANS HABIL
What you need to know:
- It then follows that if we want to improve roadworthiness, those are the two main problems we must solve. Make motorists more aware of the mechanical functions and risks, and make proper repair more affordable.
- The concern is not that checks are almost useless unless they are done constantly by vehicle owners themselves. The real worry is that annual checks (followed by no repair or dangerous repair) might do more harm than good by taking attention and resources away from measures that might actually work.
Nobody likes to drive an unroadworthy vehicle. No one hopes the brakes will fail, that a wheel will fall off, that a tyre will burst or the steering mechanism will disintegrate.
Nobody deliberately damages a light bulb, or goes hunting for a perished windscreen wiper rubber, or does a little dance of glee when all the oil leaks out of a shock absorber.
Everybody agrees that roadworthiness is a good thing, and would rather drive a vehicle that is in a reliable and safe condition. Most motorists do their best to achieve that. They expect, rightly so, that other road users will do the same. So, an opinion poll on whether roadworthiness standards could and should be improved would get a unanimous “yes”. Research would also show that there are two reasons why roadworthiness standards are currently so low.
One, many motorists are not aware of the risks.
They neither know the mechanical specifics essential to safe control (especially steering, brakes, tyres, and suspension), nor realise what driving conduct damages those parts, and/or do not know the difference between a dangerous fix, good maintenance and proper repair.
Two, many cannot afford to maintain and repair properly.
POSITIVE EFFECTS
Including those who are aware of the risks and understand the mechanisms, they simply cannot afford to maintain and repair properly. They trust luck that they will get away with the danger until their wallet can afford to fix a fault.
It then follows that if we want to improve roadworthiness, those are the two main problems we must solve. Make motorists more aware of the mechanical functions and risks, and make proper repair more affordable.
We may think hard and talk long on the best ways to do that, with things like public education, mandatory teaching and testing of maintenance principles, the technical standards of workshops, and tax regimes that encourage rather than deter use of quality parts.
But one thing we know already is that the solution is not annual vehicle inspection: it does not address any of the causes of vehicle defects and, therefore, is not a remedy.
Annual vehicle inspection may be scaled up, extended, privatised in a futile attempt to achieve the logistically impossible. But, if the true objective is to improve roadworthiness, it will have little or no positive effect. The concern is not that checks are almost useless unless they are done constantly by vehicle owners themselves. The real worry is that annual checks (followed by no repair or dangerous repair) might do more harm than good by taking attention and resources away from measures that might actually work.
To avoid such a dreadful waste, and danger, the first essential step is to rid policy of the myth that annual vehicle inspection and improved roadworthiness are somehow connected. They are not.
