PSV's given deadline to upgrade speed governors

National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has given Public Service Vehicle owners until March 1 next year to upgrade their speed governors.

The new speed governors will be able to transmit  real time data on the speed at which the vehicle is moving, the location, driver information and the Sacco the vehicle belongs to. The device will also will be linked with the smart driver’s license recently rolled out by the government.

NTSA Director General, Francis Mejja, said the new gadgets will help curb the accident menace by helping the authority to take a more active role in reducing road accidents caused by over speeding.

He blamed rogue matatu operators for tampering with the current speed governors making it difficult to monitor speeding vehicles and warned rogue drivers that they risk losing their licence if found culpable.

“With these new standards, it will be very easy to tell if a speed limiter has been tampered with. We know that some drivers have put switches on theirs, turn them off when they want to speed and only turn them on when they see police. These new ones will tell us if it has been tampered with, because the information will be getting to our servers in real time,” Mr Meja said.

Meja advised speed governor suppliers to get approval from Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) and the NTSA to ensure they deliver quality and tamper-proof speed limiters.

“The revised speed limiter requires a supplier to meet laboratory tests requirements. We shall also be carrying out inspections of all suppliers’ offices and making sure they have fitting centres,” said Meja.

Implementation of the revised speed device standard KS 2295:2018 takes effect from December 1, 2018 but the deadline is March 1 2019.