A recent police directive to all driving schools to limit the number of students could not have come at a better time. The past few months have seen a spike in fatal road accidents attributed mostly to driver errors that could have been avoided in the first place. Many driving schools have been found to focus on profit generation thereby compromising quality. Road safety and obstacle anticipation is not their forte and disregard to pedestrians is the order of the day. Motorcycle taxi operators are the worst culprits and will need special attention as they are the most favoured mode of transportation, and the most dangerous and take the lion’s share in road accidents. To ensure that operations of driving schools are operationalised, police should not be satisfied with setting guidelines but should be seen to be more involved. Regular inspections of course content, equipment and methodology should be more frequent in order to weed out sham schools. When the Prime Minister appeared before parliament this week, it became clear that one of the highlights of the government’s recent achievements was the improvement of transport infrastructure, especially new roads. But road safety also featured prominently. The welcome news was that, beginning in September, cards will be introduced to monitor the conduct of drivers, much similar to the point reduction system in some countries for every traffic offense. The prospect of losing a driver’s licence because of accumulated penalties should go far in reining in repeat offenders who have been comfortable in paying traffic fines and life continues.
