Thursday, December 17, 2015

Data? What data?

The Traffic Act, chapter 403 of the laws of Kenya, is designed to be the perfect tool for police extortion. So it appears from the current campaign by the National Police Service and the National Transport and Safety Authority to amend the Traffic (Minor Offences) Rules, 1972, to raise the limit of fines levied under the rules for minor traffic offences and to provide for an electronic (read: mobile money) means for paying the fine. The NTSA calls them instant fines. That, dear people, is the sum and substance of the NTSA brain trust's solution to speeding and other traffic no-nos.

Both the National Police and the NTSA have data on road traffic accidents; it remains a mystery whether they have data on road traffic accidents, their frequency, a demographic breakdown of victims, a breakdown of the classes of victims (motorists, passengers, pedestrians), and so on and so forth. Data, my friend Gathara know, is the foundation of policy and accurate data is the foundation of good policy. Despite its mandate to conduct research, no one truly believes that the NTSA is really interested in data or accurate data; it is more interested in fines and fees. That is a shame.

The Traffic (Minor Offences) Rules were first enacted in 1965 and other than the 1972 amendments, they have not troubled the makers of policy. The recent reanimated interest in the Rules is only so that the NTSA can increase the quantum of fines and make the process of paying them that much faster through mobile money. In its zeal to go after traffic offenders, the NTSA has not even attempted to analyse the data it has so that it can determine whether what is needed is a stiffer enforcement of the law or a change in the approach to road transport safety.

The colonial mindset in the Government is to punish, punish, punish. When in doubt, punish. When not in doubt, punish. The statute books are a litany of don'ts, and if you do, the penalty shall bes. The offences-and-penalties clauses are the only thing that matters to institutions such as the NTSA and the National Police all care about, because they are avenues for rent-seeking and extortion. (If you doubt this, read through the anodyne sounding Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development Act, 2013, and stare in wonder at the administrative mishaps that have become criminal offences.)

Fr a safety authority, the NTSA focuses shockingly little on its safety mandate and more on its authority mandate, and this shows through whenever its officers accompanies policemen on night-time drunk-driving raids across the country. There aren't enough NTSA officers to go around to make these raids a success. A reasonable suspicion is that the NTSA and the police are conducing these raids for selfish and nefarious ends.

Some of us (not me, though) have had an opportunity to watch traffic laws being enforced in advanced economies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany (with its famed Autobahns), France, Japan and Brazil. There is graft too, in these places, but the rules themselves are pretty logical and easily enforced. The Byzantine nature of the Traffic Act makes it difficult to enforce effectively. If the NTSA and the National Police want to amend the Act, first they must seek to understand what the Traffic Act intended to do, whether it has done it, if it has, whether it as done it well, and whether we need a complete overhaul or not. That is something that the Kenya Law Reform Commission can help them with. But I have no doubt that the NTSA will ram through its proposed amendments, whether they improve the situation or not.

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