Government to Reintroduce Mandatory Motor vehicle Inspection

Government has resolved to reintroduce periodic mandatory motor vehicle inspection as one of the interventions to control road carnage in the country.

This is contained in the 8 page document where stakeholders in a meeting held on Thursday adopted a number of resolutions in the wake of several road accidents most of which are caused by stationary vehicles on the road.

The Speaker Anita Among convened the strategic meeting which was attended by the Minister of Works and Transport, the Executive Director, Uganda National Roads Authority, Uganda Police Force among others.

While briefing the MPs during plenary sitting, Among read out all the resolutions that included reintroducing mandatory vehicle inspection which was suspended about 3years ago.

“In the mid-term, we have resolved to reintroduce periodic mandatory vehicle inspection which will be implemented by the Police Force. This requires adequate resourcing and equipping of the Uganda Police Force,” Among said.

As an immediate intervention, the meeting resolved urgently operationalise the Road Act, 2019 by drafting regulations which addresses various aspects of road safety.

“There is need for regulations to operationalize section 57, 58 and 59 on the towing and auctioning of abandoned or broken down automobiles on carriage ways,” the document reads.

Apparently, UNRA has offered at least 8 tow vehicles to tow abandoned vehicles on the roads at the owner’s cost. During the meeting, stakeholders faulted government vehicles as being the highest perpetrators of traffic offences including road crashes. According to the report, in 2022, over 500 government vehicles were involved in accidents.

The stakeholders called for more responsible use of government vehicles backed by sanctions for misuse as prescribed in the Public Service Standing Orders. The Speaker implored Police to scale up the monitoring and enforce compliance with the right of way and proper use of lead cars.

“Not everybody has a right of way. Not everybody should have a siren on his or her car. We agreed that this must be done immediately. Those culpable of breaches should be prosecuted,” Among said.

Other interventions include; re-introduction of the installation of speed governors in all vehicles to regulate speeding, invest in automatic number plate recognition cameras, linked to ticketing of offenders and speed guns, etc. UNRA was also directed to immediately remove roadside markets and taxi parks that have encroached onto roads and road reserves for example Busega, Lukaya, Kireka and Kyaliwajala.