All vehicles including diplomatic, government and NGO to be included
The Federal Transport Authority has finished a final draft that will make using and administrating electronic speed governing (ESG) devices mandatory. This month the draft is expected to be signed and implemented. Commercial vehicles will be the first to use ESG followed b diplomatic, government and non-government organizational vehicles and then finally private taxies.
The directive stipulates that the maximum speed will be 80kmh, unless a located has put a lower speed limit into effect. Any car made in 2000 or later will need to use ESG, according to the draft, which goes on to read that earlier model vehicles will be dealt with at a later date.
The machine which is going to limit the oil and air running to the engine is also specified to have a Global Positioning System (GPS) which is going to track every movement of the car. The device will send the data of the car to a database using the telecommunication fleet management system in which the owner is going to be responsible for the costs, according to the draft. When the vehicles are offline it will save the data and send the information when it is back on the network.
“We finalized the preparation of the database and the display board is being installed now,” said Yakob Belay Director of Road Safety Directorate at the Authority.
In the first phase, which is expected to enter into operation within the coming six months, public transports accommodating 12 people up to 65 seats, carriage service givers, dump trucks will install the device.
“We chose to implement the directive on the commercial vehicles first is the nation is facing a tremendous threat with the alarmingly increasing deaths and loss of property year after year,” said Yigzaw. “Studies are showing 85% up to 90% of accidents occur due to speeding.”
In this past fiscal year alone 5,118 people died from car accidents while 4479 lost their lives in the 2016/17 fiscal year. In addition, 7,754 people suffered major injuries, which was an increase of 268 from the previous year. Every year there are more injuries and fatalities from accidents and 80 percent of these are males. The total damage caused to property was 920.77 million birr in the 2017/18 fiscal year which was a slight decrease from last year’s damages of 1.18 billion birr.
Any vehicle which does not install the ESG will not get its annual competence certificate at the end of the year. Also, the authority has finalized the specification of the machines to be imported.
“We will call experienced importers to get licenses and import the machine starting from the week of the approval of the directive,” said Yigzaw.
The authority is entitled, by the draft directive, to issue, renew or terminate the import license for the importers. Also, the renewal of the machine will be cited by the authority.
Owners are expected to purchase, install and follow-up the functionality of the device and vehicles using the machine will get a sign.
Drivers are obliged not to drive any vehicle which is supposed to have the speed limiter and when there are problems with the machine they have to immediately stop the car and report the problem to the owner, reads the draft.
The bill also states that anyone who sells the speed limiter should also have a trained team to install and maintain the machine. The authority will license shops who sell the devices which are expected to organize the data of their customers digitally and manually. Also, availing the spare parts for the machine will be mandatory. The shop owners are expected to carry only brands authorized by the authority and carrying any others will cause a penalty, according to the draft bill.
Until the end of the last fiscal year the nation accommodated 935,888 vehicles most of which were cars at 212,317. Addis Ababa is the highest destination for the registration of the cars with 553,938 vehicles while Oromia and Amhara Regions were followed with 129,339 and 67,299 significantly.
The directive also compels the transport associations to oblige their members to use the machine and they have to deny them any work when the speed limiter is disabled. Associations which accept new members without installing the machine will be penalized.
Any device to be imported is obliged by the authority to give an alert to the driver and send the report to the database when the maximum limit is excelled.
After the authentication of the directive vehicles which enter the country will be only those who have the specified speed limiter. The directive also sets a specific time for the reporting on the implementation of the directive and for the authority to solve the problem, that is five days each.
In the global market the price of the device runs from USD 65 to USD 200 on average.
