{"id":42526,"date":"2020-12-26T06:59:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-26T06:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/31-motorcyclists-arrested-for-riding-on-sidewalks\/"},"modified":"2020-12-26T06:58:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T06:58:58","slug":"31-motorcyclists-arrested-for-riding-on-sidewalks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/31-motorcyclists-arrested-for-riding-on-sidewalks\/","title":{"rendered":"31 motorcyclists arrested for riding on sidewalks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The traffic offenders were paraded to the media on Friday, December 25, at the Metropolitan Police headquarters in Remera.<\/p>\n

Rwanda National Police (RNP) spokesperson, Commissioner of Police (CP) John Bosco Kabera said that their actions were also destroying public infrastructure, violating rights of pedestrians and leading to accidents.<\/p>\n

He added that taxi-moto operators have a bad attitude and behaviours of violating traffic control-lights, reckless maneuvers trying to overtake vehicles and riding on pedestrian pavements and green spaces, during traffic jam.<\/p>\n

Ensuring road safety, he said, involves both education and enforcement.<\/p>\n

“We have conducted awareness campaigns in the past years, targeting different groups of road users, including taxi-moto operators. During Gerayo Amahoro campaign, we had a whole month dedicated to educating motorcyclists, among others, on respect for sidewalks and green spaces. It is now time for enforcement,” CP Kabera warned.<\/p>\n

“In some cases, motorcyclists fall down trying to climb pavements and knock pedestrians on sidewalks because of such inappropriate driving behaviours,” he added.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson further noted that some taxi-moto operators do not have insurance, turn off lights especially when they are violating the curfew hours, in some cases leading to accidents.<\/p>\n

“There is no gain in paying heavy fines for such preventable violations. All you need to do is respect traffic lights, not to ride on sidewalks or green spaces. A motorcycle should have insurance because it is your insurance that pays for the damage caused in case of an accident,” CP Kabera told motorcyclists.<\/p>\n

Riding on sidewalks attracts a traffic fine of Rwf150,000, among other penalties.<\/p>\n

Eric Nzayisenga, one of the arrested taxi-moto operators, regretted his actions which he said have put him in a “tough situation” of looking for money to pay the heavy fines.<\/p>\n

“I have learnt a lesson. For a motorcyclist to raise such an amount of money… it is really hard especially when you acquired the motorcycle on loan like me. I hope all taxi-moto drivers have also picked a lesson from this,” said Nzayisenga.<\/p>\n

He admitted that he knew that riding on pavements in wrong “only that we did not mind about it probably because no one had ever been arrested or penalised for it.”<\/p>\n

To Yves Haragirimana, another arrested motorcyclist, the majority taxi-moto drivers have made it a practice to use walkways, especially during traffic jam.<\/p>\n

“It is my first time to be in handcuffs for a simple thing that I can avoid. I must admit that most motorcyclists using pavements see it as something normal, but this is a lesson learnt,” said Haragirimana.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Thirty-one taxi-moto operators have been arrested on various roads in City of Kigali for allegedly riding on walkways.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-42526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42526"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=42526"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=42526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}