KAMPALA, UGANDA: All drivers of passenger buses will be required to wear identification badges effective this week, the Traffic Police and Road Safety Directorate has announced.
The policy of wearing badges was years ago introduced by the Ministry of Works and Transport as the government’s new initiative to crack down on incompetent drivers to reduce the increasing road carnage in the country.
The policy later became abandoned over unclear reasons, but now police have reawakened the policy and said that going forward, no bus will be allowed to move without a badge for the driver.
The Traffic Police Spokesperson ASP Faridah Nampiima on Monday directed owners of buses operating on Ugandan roads to submit particulars of their bus drivers to the Ministry of Works and Transport effective Friday, January 6th, 2023.
“Following the recent bus crashes in the country, the Directorate of Traffic has taken a decision to have driver badges reinstated and all bus owners are hereby instructed to submit particulars of all bus drivers to the Ministry of Works and Transport for verification starting 06th January 2023,” Ms Nampiima said while addressing journalists on Monday, January 09, 2022.
Nampiima explained that in every passenger bus, the driver must clearly display their photo, badge which has their name, permit number, class of the driving permit and the bus company to help police monitor the movement of buses, adding that “the badges are one of the initiatives to crack down on incompetent drivers since only qualified ones are issued with the badges.”
Relatedly, In a bid to tighten the noose around drivers, the traffic police spokesperson noted that they are resuming the crackdown on buses without route charts. A route chart is a document which details the route a specific bus must play and the time it does it.
However, according to ASP Faridah Nampiima, some bus companies don’t have their own route charts and share from their colleagues in the same business.
She says that because of lack of route charts to be followed, many drivers ply routes that they are not supposed to be plying but also make more than the recommended trips which has been cited as one of the major causes of accidents by buses on Ugandan roads.
“Every company should have a route chat and if it is given, it shows when and where your bus is supposed to be in a particular place. Every bus should move within the specified time of the route chat. We don’t want to see scenarios where a bus arrives at a particular point before the time specified on the route chart since this shows that the driver is overspeeding,”Nampiima said.
The traffic police spokesperson says the development is one of the ways in which they want to tighten the noose around bus drivers in a bid to reduce road accidents, especially those caused by drivers.
She insists that if drivers follow the route charts, they will avoid return journeys which have proven to be the leading causes of accidents by buses as the drives rush to make as many trips as possible.
The development comes nearly a week after two separate bus crashes that rocked the country in Kamdini-Oyam and Lwakhaka border post claiming lives of more than 20 people, with several others left critically injured.
The country has recorded an unprecedented number of accidents over the festive season, which, according to police records claimed more than 90 lives in a space of two weeks. 35 of these died in two days between December 31, 2022, and January 1, 2023, while 55 people lost lives in 206 crushes that took place during the Christmas week.
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