The directorate of Traffic and Roads safety has introduced new measures to curb indiscipline on the road, and reduce accidents.
The horror, agony, human slaughter and devastation that have been caused by road accidents a few days ago, have raised eye brows amongst the responsible stakeholders, who have risen up in a higher gear to fix a few issues, so as to ensure the safety of persons and their property during transit.
According to Traffic Police statistics, 118 people were killed in road crashes between April 24th, and May this year, translating into 10 people loosing their lives everday.
To stop this from happening or better still ameliorate the situation, Faridah Nampiima, the Traffic Police Directorate spokesperson issued new guidelines to road users, while addressing the press this week, at Police headquarters in Naguru.
According to Ms. Nampiima, when these guidelines are strictly followed, there will be a sharp reduction in road accidents, and this is what she had to say:
We shall establish barriers at identified black spots. You know we had black spots before, in these areas accidents no longer happen there. So we have identified other new ones. We are going to deploy in those zones and we shall have officers operate there 24/7.
We are going to increase motorized patrols on the roads. You will see more of our motorcycles because traffic directorate has a city patrol unit that has a number of motorcycles. You will be seeing them moving around helping in jam, patrolling highways to curb the indiscipline on the road.
We are strengthening the operations on speed, using the already established speed gun enforcement areas. Traffic directorate has speed guns. These are placed on the roads everyday, so we are going to enforce more on speed so that we fight the carnage on the road.
We are also going to carry operations on reckless driving which is the major cause of accidents on our roads. We shall also ensure that only competent drivers drive on our roads. If you are not trained to drive, you have not gone to the driving school, you have never attained driving license, don’t drive on the road. Once you are arrested, you will be taken to court
We shall ensure that operations are intensified on bodabodas. Today, you have seen motorcycles being impounded. We are majorly concertrating on those ones carrying more than one passenger, on addition to the rider, and those riding without a crash helmet. A number of them are at the stations, we have started impounding them today.
We shall also relaunch the Fika Salama check points. The Fika Salama check points were there , we are relaunching, we are adding in more manpower on those checkpoints.
We are also advising all our office traffic and regional traffic officers to go on with community sestization that you are seeing taking place, we have already given out the toll free lines in buses and the lines are being called on, we thank the community for cooperating with us, it helps ous alot, now that the drivers know that once they misbehave, they will be reported.
Repercussion
How will the offenders be handled when they are arrested in these offences, all offenders will be issued with EPS tickets for offences except the ones failing to stop, you are stopped by the traffic officer and you don’t comply, they will not issue you a ticket.They will call ahead and they will arrest you. Traffic officers are not allowed to chase vehicles. Don’t expect anyone to follow you, they will just communicate ahead and impound your car.
Those ones who fail to stop when stopped, the ones who drive when they are drunk, drink drivers never stop . Its COVID that affected that operation because of the way it is done, but now if we get you driving and you are drunk, we shall take you to court.
Those ones who repeatedly commit the same offences, we have people on the road, for sure every week for you, you are driving without a seat belt but not every week, everday they are arresting you for the same offence, so if you have repeated offences, they will not issue you EPS ticket, they will take you to courts of law.
Statistics
A total number of 4760 traffic violators were arrested and issued with EPS tickets from 1st May to 31st May. Those who were arrested for speeding, they include 1855 offenders, those who were intercepted for reckless driving 6978, those ones who were issued tickets when they are got driving vehicles in dengerous mechanical condition are 8979.
Those who were interrupted for not wearing seat belts are 3156, those who were arrested on the road driving with invalid driving license 3644 offenders, those who were got driving on the road without the sand party insurance, they were 343, among others. The EPS certificate carries 24 offences. These are part of those offences that make up the 4760 traffic violations on the road issue tickets for the month of May.
Road safety tips
Be careful when opening the door of your car, it may kick someone, most of you when you are in your vehicles, you just open the doors. Always look in the side mirror before you open the door because you are most likely to hit another person and cause an accident on the road.
Never seat infront, if you are carrying a baby or a child. You are risking the life of this child. In case of a crush, they either hit themselves on the steering or windscreen. You will lose a life so children are not safe in the front seats.
Vehicles that are less than 3500 Kg maximum permissible weight should not exceed 100Km/hr on our roads, so either you are driving an SUV, Subaru, or any other car the speed limit in Uganda is 100. Don’t risk, don’t test us, beyond 100 you are risking and you will die on the road.
If you have to board a bus, make sure they pick you up at the safe places. They have the stop points for proper loading and offloading. Go to the stages where they park those bodabodas, avoid being loaded and offloaded in the road, you are risking your life, you will be hit and we shall lose you.
You should not travel in the back of a truck, or any vehicle that is meant to carry goods only. We are looking at the people who take charcoal, they tend to ferry people on top, the sand, bricks, those tippers tend to carry people, the market vendors, then these people who transport animals, you are not supposed to be carried in the back of the car. You are risking your lives.
The directorate reminds all road users to be vigilant while using the road and they call upon all road users to change their attitude on the road. Our toll free line is still on and it is 0800199099. Thank you.
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