Ignore threats and come up with laws to regulate boda boda

A boda boda rider ferries charcoal and a passenger along Kisii Kilgoris road. [File, Standard]

According to media reports, the Boda boda Safety Association of Kenya (BSAK) has threatened to hold a nationwide strike should Parliament proceed with the Public Transport (Motorcycle Regulation) Bill 2023. The rider's association is against attempts to regulate a mode of transport whose members carry on as though they were a law unto themselves.

The regulations that Parliament proposes are founded on plain common sense. If anything, it comes as a surprise that these are not already statutes in the country's laws. Take, for instance, the proposal to have every rider of a two-wheeled motorcycle to have a valid licence issued by the relevant authority.

Or the requirement that riders and their passengers have prescribed protective gear. Or that overtaking by riders be done on the right-hand side and that riders not overtake within the same lane as the vehicle being overtaken.