Happening Now: DP Rigathi Gachagua impeachment motion tabled
Authorise garages to inspect vehicles
Matatus line up for inspection at the Motor Vehicle Inspection workshop on Likoni Road in Nairobi on March 27, 2014. Clearly, there will have to be a public-private partnership, or wholesale privatisation of the vehicle inspection function. There is a way of doing that with no additional downtime for vehicles, no lost man-hours, and no further national investment in facilities, which would ensure thorough inspection of vehicles not just once per year but many times. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- NTSA has that overarching status, and the tools it has been given so far include licensing, registration, driving schools, testing and vehicle inspection. There will need to be more. These and other functions cannot be transferred from dozens of ministries to a single new command centre at the flick of a switch.
- Clearly, there will have to be a public-private partnership, or wholesale privatisation of the vehicle inspection function. There is a way of doing that with no additional downtime for vehicles, no lost man-hours, and no further national investment in facilities, which would ensure thorough inspection of vehicles not just once per year but many times.
Annual vehicle inspection is due to be extended to all classes of vehicle aged four years or more. The law is ready and the transport authorities are determined.
The task of turning that policy intention into an action plan falls to the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), Kenya’s long-awaited “lead agency” on all matters where the rubber meets the road.
The NTSA is, above all, the road safety tsar. Its existence acknowledges worldwide wisdom that road safety involves hundreds of factors that are not just linked but inextricably interwoven. No significant or sustained improvement can be achieved unless all these factors are co-ordinated and controlled by a single authority.
NTSA has that overarching status, and the tools it has been given so far include licensing, registration, driving schools, testing and vehicle inspection. There will need to be more. These and other functions cannot be transferred from dozens of ministries to a single new command centre at the flick of a switch. The process is lengthy and challenging. What is being handed over is not in best shape. But at least the process has started, and revamping vehicle inspection is emerging as a here-and-now agendum.
NOBODY KNOWS
No-one knows exactly how it will be done. But as many experts estimate, Kenya has at least one million road-going vehicles aged four years or more (NTSA’s own estimates are double that!), and we do have one arithmetic certainty: the State cannot possibly do the job on its own.
Even if government facilities, equipment and personnel were increased by 1,000% (sic), and worked properly, they would not be able to properly inspect one million vehicles even once a year. That would not have a significant impact on road safety, and it would cost the economy billions in vehicle downtime and unproductive man-hours.
Clearly, there will have to be a public-private partnership, or wholesale privatisation of the vehicle inspection function. There is a way of doing that with no additional downtime for vehicles, no lost man-hours, and no further national investment in facilities, which would ensure thorough inspection of vehicles not just once per year but many times.
In short, vehicles should be inspected where they are normally serviced, every time they are serviced. As part of their regular maintenance and repair regime. Most owners would not only tolerate this; they would wholeheartedly welcome it! Commercial workshops that set themselves up to maintain and repair vehicles should be licensed and authorised to issue roadworthiness certificates.
And the certificates should make them potentially liable in accident investigations that identify vehicle defect as a significant contributory cause.
