MOTORING: Needed: Detailed website to rein in ‘traffic emperors’

The most speedy thing on Kenya’s roads is a vehicle called Google. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Not a data mountain the size of the Himalayas shrouded in an impenetrable fog of errors, omissions and half-baked decrees.
  • What’s needed is a single authoritative site. One which sets out all the laws, rights, responsibilities, systems and proper processes for every stakeholder on every aspect of road transport.

The most speedy thing on Kenya’s roads is a vehicle called Google.

It is so fast that, if you press the search button for “Kenya Traffic Act”, in less than half-a-second, it can find 762,000 references.

Remarkable. But not helpful. It can take hours not (!) to find a simple but fundamental fact. What the motoring public wants and needs is quick, simple and clear information, here and now.

Not a data mountain the size of the Himalayas shrouded in an impenetrable fog of errors, omissions and half-baked decrees.

What’s needed is a single authoritative site. One which sets out all the laws, rights, responsibilities, systems and proper processes for every stakeholder on every aspect of road transport. It should have its own strictly internal search engine, so a key word delivers an instant and unequivocal hivyo, ndivyo ilivyo.

That is what “transparency” means. That is what underpins “accountability”. That is what assures justice and develops the mutual respect that leads to improved conduct.

Anything less is a smokescreen of siasa and scam; a blank cheque for roadside rogues; the grist of motoring rumour mills; and the carcinogen of chronic indignity and injustice visited on Ordinary Mo.

INVESTMENT

The consequence of those patterns can be measured in traffic jam man-hours, damage repair bills, injuries and deaths. So it is against those effects that the value of investment in a single and comprehensive website could be calculated.

The remedial process may take some time, but its urgency and efficacy and cost-benefit are self-evident.

And while we’re waiting, the sincerity of policy intent could be much enhanced by removing the prohibition on filming or voice recording near yellow spikes; an early clarification of what constitutes “evidence” of an offence (eg speeding); and an explanation of the “powers” process that gives a roadside constable a level of authority (and potential income) that would be the envy of an emperor.

Another useful interim measure — until proposed regulations have been fully designed, tested, assessed, explained, disseminated and passed into law by fully democratic processes (and placed on the all-knowing website with a date) — might be to issue them as “guidelines” instead.

The really good news in this respect is that worldwide, throughout motoring history, the most important rules have been most effective when and where they have started as advice backed by public education campaigns.

By the time they pass into law, they already have such public understanding and compliance that enforcement is almost redundant.

As a banal example, before a decree makes carrying a tow rope compulsory, with a penalty for default, might it be a good idea to define what a tow rope is?

And what determines its design?  And how it should be used? And how deadly it can be if the wrong rope is used for the wrong job or in the wrong way?

If the person making the rule does not already know the answers to all those factors (and many more not listed here), the law should not be made.

And if the answers are known, they should be published... well in advance of any legal mandate to the highway emperors.