Road safety players on Wednesday, March 6, launched an electronic sticker that aims to prevent road fatalities across the country.
Speaking to the press during the launch of the digital system, Road Safety Association of Kenya (RSAK) Chairman David Njoroge noted that the e-stickers would be fitted with speed limiters which would enable law enforcement officers to easily detect traffic lawbreakers.
He noted that once the system is installed onto a car, the motorists’ details will be detected electronically.
This includes the vehicle’s make, registration number, motor vehicle ownership and chassis number among others.
A photo of NTSA officials inspecting a vehicle on November 11, 2022.
Photo
NTSA
Njoroge hailed the system as a revolutionary move that would transform the transport sector countrywide.
He appealed to the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) and traffic police officers to implement the system to reduce the number of fatalities on Kenyan roads.
“My prayer is to ask NTSA and police not to fight this system because it will help them. They ought to support it because they aim to protect lives,” he stated.
“This will help even drivers of lorries to be in check and adhere to the rules.”
He added that once all road safety players enforce the new system, in four months, the number of road fatalities would be reduced significantly.
In the past two months, over 649 people have lost their lives in road accidents countrywide according to the latest statistics from NTSA.
“This has never been done before. Now the system will have one certificate for all drivers. The moment you activate it, we see it on our system,” he commented.
“If the traffic police department together with NTSA can give us a window of three months to have a recall program, the fourth month we will talk about no fatalities along the road.”
How it Works
The e-sticker will be placed on the left inner side of the windscreen and will help the government to identify key statistics about the sector including the number of vehicles in the country.
The new system will also identify stolen vehicles through various checkpoints across the country.
Motorists who exceed the specified speed limit will not be spared as the e-sticker will highlight such cars on the system.
This data will be essential to traffic officers who will keep track of law offenders.
The system will also have a feature that makes it impossible to tamper with the electronic sticker and will be easy to identify if a motorist attempts to destroy it.
At the time of publishing this article, NTSA was yet to state whether it would adopt the new system.
An aerial photo of a traffic jam along the Thika Super Highway in August 2021.
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Ma3Route