In a campaign to reduce road accidents across the country, Police through the directorate of Traffic Police have issued new directives to all its traffic officers ordering them to stop issuing Express Penalty Scheme tickets to reckless drivers but instead arrest, and take them to court immediately.
The directive which was announced by the spokesperson of the Traffic Police, Superintendent of Police, Michael Kananura, revealed that any reckless driver who will be arrested will immediately be taken to courts of law, prosecuted and sentenced as soon as possible.
While addressing journalists at the Police headquarters on Monday, SP Kananura said that the new directive is aimed at enforcing traffic regulations in the country since several reports have shown that the majority of the motorists in Uganda don’t adhere to the traffic rules and regulations.
“There is now a new directive that those driving recklessly and over-speeding shall now be arrested and taken to courts of law instead of EPS tickets. We have found that issuing EPS tickets is not punitive enough. We shall now be arresting the offenders. The core objective is to ensure there is sanity on the road and it is why we impound them and take them to court. If everyone can comply, we wouldn’t have issues on the road,” he said.
Kananura also urged members of the public to join the Police in this campaign and make sure that sanity comes back on Uganda’s roads. In this campaign, the Police as has tasked members of the public to report any case of reckless driving and the culprits will be arrested immediately.
“In case you cite these behaviors, please call traffic on 0800199099 and we shall immediately take action to impound the vehicles and take the drivers to courts of law,” he said.
The new directive comes at a time when Uganda at least loses over 75-100 people every week in road accidents. According to recent statistics recorded from the period of July 30, 2023, to 6th August 2023, over 99 people lost their lives in a road accident.
A total of 405 accidents were recorded; 79 were fatal, 199 were serious and 127 were minor. In the 405 accidents recorded last week, 424 were victims, 99 of which died and 325 sustained serious injuries. Of those who died, 36 were on motorcycles as passengers (5) and 35 riders.
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