Police has issued new directives to traffic officers to carry out country-wide operations to curb traffic accidents by arresting reckless drivers and prosecuting them instead of issuing express penalty scheme tickets.
SP Michael Kananura, the spokesperson for the Traffic and Road Safety Directorate Department, while speaking at the weekly security brief on August 7, 2023, said that Police will arrest, name and shame drivers committing traffic offences.
“There is now a new directive that those driving recklessly and overspeeding shall now be arrested and taken to courts of law instead of EPS tickets,” SP Kananura said.
He added that previously, police had come up with a policy of naming and shaming drivers who committed traffic offences.
During the naming and shaming, both government and private vehicles will be published for the public to see, and on top of this, they will be issued with express penalty scheme tickets.
SP Kananura stated that the need to ensure adherence to traffic laws, which they claimed is not the case at the moment, has necessitated the use of traffic police.
“We have found that issuing EPS tickets is not punitive enough. We will now be arresting the offenders. The core objective is to ensure there is sanity on the road, which is why we impound them and take them to court. If everyone can comply, we wouldn’t have issues on the road,” SP Kananura said.
The police requested that the public report reckless drivers, and in case you come across such behaviours on the road, call traffic at 0800199099, and they will respond immediately.
In the traffic police report for July 30 and August 6, a total of 405 accidents were recorded, of which 79 were fatal, 199 were serious, and 127 were minor.
The military Police traffic officers are deployed in several parts of the country, especially the city, and on roadblocks along the major highways to check on discipline, especially by drivers of government and security vehicles who are on many occasions reckless on the road.
