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"content": "The whole issue is to ensure that offences are not repeated. With first offenders, the fine should be realistic. Let us even maintain the old fines, but make them very stiff for repeated offenders. The Minister has proposed that if a driver commits an offence with the same vehicle twice, the vehicle should even be deregistered. That is the right move. If the offence is repeated twice, you can see that the owner of the vehicle is condoning misbehavior. In terms of first offenders, we should be realistic and allow the offence to carry a small fine, so that we can reduce the exposure. Every human being has a price. The moment you impose a Kshs50,000 fine on a driver, if it is my son or myself, I will not go in. I will just sell my cow and give Kshs10,000 to an officer, who goes to construct a five storey building in Kayole. You will find that we, legislators, as people without brains, will be making a kill for these officers. It will be very harmful to this country if we move in that direction. There are many issues which have been raised by the previous speaker. I would like us to address this Bill without emotions. Of course, when death occurs, emotions go to the extent of even making us to shed tears. At that time, if you are asked what should happen to the person who caused the death of your relative, you would say that he should go to the gallows. I remember the first time I wept in a burial; it was the burial for my sister’s husband. She was only three years in the marriage. I did not imagine that anybody can cry in the presence of others, but I found myself shedding tears. It is so painful. If you are asked what should be done to the person who caused the death, you can say that he should also face similar consequences. But these are emotions. We should be sober and think about this matter on a very sober note. The only way we can do this is by ensuring that whatever we put in this Bill should address these issues, but clear the element of emotions from the Bill, so that it can carry everybody on board. I want to touch on the frequency of inspection of vehicles. The Bill proposes this to be done on vehicles which are four years old. For those of us who joined Parliament in 2008 and bought new cars, they are now four years old. A politician’s vehicle is extremely busy. It is used many times, but many of them are still in good shape. They are still serviceable. This clause should be consistent with the requirement of eight years as imposed by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS). Then after that, you can subject the vehicle to inspection every other year, so that we can become consistent and safeguard the lives of our Kenyan citizens. Let me also remind you that the vehicles that cause accidents on our roads are the new vehicles. The old vehicles never exceed 80 kilometres per hour. They will never do 140 kilometres per hour because they are rattling and wobbling. The new vehicles are the ones that always kill. Pedestrians under-estimate the new vehicles’ distance and within seconds, they are together. So, it is also important for us to be aware that while we are imagining that we are going to address the issue of road worthiness to cure accidents, this will only be partly true. Yes, if a vehicle stalls on the way, definitely, it will cause obstruct ion and oncoming vehicles can also have a serious problem. But while addressing that, we should be cautious, so that we do not also overdo it. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, which vehicles would be inspected thereafter? Let us take the case of a saloon car which is eight years old; after it runs ordinary errands from house to office and used on weekends, chances are it will require touch-ups again after three years. Even those who work with us, here in Parliament can attest to that. They can use a vehicle even for ten years without having touched any major"
}