Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
Transport and Communications Minister Brian Mushimba
Transport and Communications Minister Engineer Brian Mushimba has clarified that the new Statutory Instrument will see the PSV drivers only be allowed behind the wheel a total of 8 hours of continuous operation.
This follows after stakeholders rejected the four hours period announced earlier which the Minister said was a miscommunication.
Engineer Mushimba says the driver will be mandated to rest for a continuous period of 8 hours before he or she can resume driving.
He says in a week, a PSV driver is only allowed a maximum of 48 hours to be behind the wheel.
He explains that this law is written after studies that show fatigue among drivers, especially after continuous driving for 8hrs, as the major contributory factor for to the accidents.
Engineer Mushimba hopes that with the other measures rolled out such as restriction of driving during certain hours, GPS and speed monitoring of PSVs, seat belt laws, stricter licensing of drivers and better automated road worthiness tests of vehicles, in the short term, will help start tilting the number of accidents in the direction we want, which is zero accidents on our roads.