I am a resident of one of the most over legislated cities in the world in a country where there seems to be an addiction to coming up with the most weird laws. The laws seem to only target the improvement of ways and mechanisms of revenue collection.
As much as speeding is not cool, one also has to to bear in mind that 50kph as recently gazetted by NTSA and the Transport ministry is too slow. This is, in my view, an attempt to unfairly punish motorists in the pretext of safety from a public that will always need to be protected from themselves because they:
1. Don’t want to use foot bridges
2. Want to walk on the road
3. Want to trade on the road
4. Want to park their matatus on the road
5. Want to drop off and carry passengers anywhere on the road
NTSA in itself has become an extortion arm of the government in collaboration with the Police traffic department. Instead of upholding traffic laws and ensuring they are followed by everyone, they have now become protectors of the people I have listed above from motorists using highways and roads.
The government in itself is a funny one. Why do they invest so much money in bridges that no one will use? Why they do construct a four lane highway where hawkers own two lanes in Ngara and matatus literally block two lanes in roysambu and 45 area of the highway.
I suspect Nairobi is the only city in the world where a super highway has speed bumps under a crossing bridge so that pedestrians who choose to cross the road under the bridge can do so.
So in short, Nairobi motorists, you are being punished for the mistake of a public that doesn’t care, government institutions that are not worth their salt, and for a certain urge to generate income by government where if you have a car, you become an easy target.
Make money with the following groups of people:
1. Drunk drivers
2. Reckless drivers
3. Matatus (this one is a special interest area cos of the billions the government would mint from fines)
4. Idiots crossing the highways under the foot bridges
5. People who don’t use trafic lights and the cops who encourage it