The Kenya National Highways Authority (Kenha) has slapped a motorist with a multimillion fine for violating traffic regulations along Mombasa Road.
The Authority said it intercepted a driver with an overloaded truck on Thursday night.
Officer Commanding the Axle Load Enforcement and Highways Unit Senior Superintendent of Police John Gichohi said officers were forced to shoot in the air to scare away rowdy youths who tried to free the vehicle.
“Goons tried to use unorthodox means to free the vehicle. They rammed the truck with another vehicle to immobilise it but our officers managed to tow the vehicle to the weighbridge,” Gichohi said.
The truck which was transporting sand was detained at the Mlolongo Weighbridge Station. It was found to have exceeded the normal weight of 54,000kg to 78,740kg, an overload of 24.7 tonnes.
“The overloaded truck has attracted an overload fine of Shs.13.9 million under the East Africa Community Vehicle Load Act 2016,” Kenha said.
As a result of the incident, Kenha said it “is tightening the noose on overloading in a bid to safeguard roads across the country”.
Addressing the media at Mlolongo weighbridge on Monday, Gichohi said police will work with other relevant authorities to protect the roads despite intimidation by some selfish individuals.
“We will implement the law and no amount of intimidation will stop us,” he added.
Kenha Axle Load Senior Engineer Kennedy Ndugire added that the authority will do everything to protect roads from overloaded trucks.
“We receive at least 100 cases of overloading in our loads daily. Some cases end up in court. Trucks plying regional trunk road networks are fined at the weighbridges,” Eng Ndugire said.
“We will not relent to protect our roads. In 60 days if the owner will not have paid the fine, he will be deemed to have forfeited the vehicle to the state and Kenha will get a court order to sell the vehicle,” he added.
