Commercial vehicles and the law

Since such operation started yesterday, the general public has been bearing the brunt as commercial vehicle shortage becomes the order of the day.

However, it must be noted that commercial vehicle owners and their drivers must learn to behave responsibly as they conduct their business.

They should bear in mind that at the end of each year all vehicle licences and some other essentials like insurance expire, hence they must be renewed.

A grace period of two to three months is also given to vehicle owners to put their house in order or renew their licensing, which means they have up to March as the deadline to do so.

But most times, as we are witnessing now in this vehicle crisis, they fail to renew their licences; yet they continue to ply the streets collecting fares from passengers and generating income to meet their needs.

It is obvious that they would have a clash with the licence department and traffic police, a situation the public is grappling with right now.

In this situation, however, it is not the commercial vehicle owners alone who are affected.

The general public, especially workers, students and businesspeople, would have their work, studies and business transactions seriously affected as they find it very difficult to get to their workplaces, schools and business outlets.

While this is happening, drivers of the few commercial vehicles plying the roads take advantage of the situation to either shorten the distances of their normal routes or raise the bar high by calling for being hired or ‘town trip', which is a lot of money for the lay man.

Commercial vehicle owners and drivers should know that licence renewal is a source of revenue generation for the government, from which roads and other facilities for vehicles are provided.

Licensing is also enforced to make sure registration and proper identification of vehicles are done, for the good of the nation and for security and safety purposes.

For the sake of the smooth operations of business, and to run our affairs without hindrance, we should always try to put up responsible behaviour such as renewing our vehicle licences; so we can in turn hold our government responsible if they fall short of meeting their side of the bargain in providing the basic public ‘goods’ of a nation.

“Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.”

Bertrand Russell