Elaborate new traffic rules dead on arrival
By Gathu Kaara, July 7, 2025The government has, yet again, published a new raft of traffic regulations. The new regulations provide a framework on how motor vehicles will be inspected, operated and monitored on Kenyan roads.
The new rules, dubbed Traffic (Motor Vehicle Inspection) Rules 2025, are currently in the stage of submission of memoranda and public participation.
Among the highlights are the return of Alcoblow, whose rollout has been stymied by court orders, and the introduction of a comprehensive licensing and regulatory framework for school buses.
The government’s desire to tighten traffic rules is understandable. Kenya’s road carnage is unrelenting.
However, it seems that the government has been barking up the wrong tree by keeping to introduce new regulations.
Just last year in 2024, the government introduced new rules via amendments to the Traffic Act through the Commercial Service Vehicle Regulations for 2024.
The government is to be applauded for seeking to tighten traffic laws. However, these rules are all very well, and they adequately take care of the supply side.
The Achilles heel of traffic laws in Kenya is the demand side or enforcement.
As a consequence, these new laws are dead on arrival. One can bet that even after these rules are enacted, as they surely will be, the harrowing statistics of road carnage in Kenya will not skip a beat. This has been the trend despite regular tightening and broadening of traffic laws in the country.
Unless and until the government, and Kenyans, address and deal with the issue of bribery of traffic police on Kenyan roads, nothing will change.
In fact, the very elaborate mechanisms the laws are putting in place, especially for inspection, and the increased frequency of those inspections, are just opening new toll stations for traffic police and those manning the inspection centres.
Given the expected jump in vehicles needing to be inspected, the government will use private contractors to do the job.
It remains to be seen whether this will improve efficiency in service delivery, as well as remove the rampant corruption that defines Kenya’s motor vehicle inspection ecosystem.
So long as the ingrained culture of bribery among traffic police is not brought to an end, road safety in Kenya will remain a mirage, and accidents will continue killing Kenyans in rising numbers year after year.
And that is one reason why the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has been a toothless bulldog – all bark and no bite. It has been a complete failure. NTSA relies on traffic police to enforce traffic rules on its behalf.
Even the courts are not helping by seemingly siding with operators of public service vehicles who break rules, seriously undermining NTSA’s enforcement efforts.
So, the Ministry of Transport, under whose ambit road safety falls, might want to take a rain check as far as rolling out the new rules is concerned.
They need to ask themselves, what can we do so that the laws we roll out, as well as those already existing, can be effectively enforced?
This is where the ministry needs to start. If the crisis of bribery of traffic police on our roads is not dealt with, forget ever reducing road carnage on Kenya roads.
The culture is so ingrained that completely new thinking is needed on how to root it out. Nobody tackles this matter with any seriousness.
gathukara@gmail.com
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