Barely over a month ago, the Sierra Leone Police instituted a by-law banning motor bike riders to ply what they refer to as the Central Business District (CBD) of Freetown. As part of measures to ensure the effectiveness of this law, the Director of Traffic in the Sierra Leone Police, Superintendent Edmond Issa Conteh, on Tuesday disclosed that the police had implemented a new strategy to apprehend lawless motor bike riders in the city.
He said the law, which was agreed on between the police and members of the Motor Bike Riders Association, involved placing nails on boards and throwing them under the tires of bike riders who flout the rule. He said that would puncture the tires of the bikes and eventually enable the police to arrest the rider. He explained that: “we have told our men that they should be two to carry out this strategy; one of them will give a hand signal to the rider to tell him that he is using the wrong route. If in the event the rider refuses to adhere to this signal, the second officer will have to throw the nails under the tire. However, it should be noted that this law is only applied when the rider is alone on the bike” he said.
The Traffic director went on to give reasons why they introduced the law stating that: “bike riders have been warned not to ply the CBD because of their dangerous and reckless ways of riding. They have been endangering the lives of their passengers, pedestrian, and contributing to increase the traffic burden in the city.” He said these were part of the reasons they instituted the ban adding that there were still a couple of bike riders flouting the rule with impunity.
Meanwhile, responding to the question that using nails to arrest bike riders would imply that police have gone out of ideas to control bike riders and that the technique will eventually endanger not only the lives of the riders, but will also expose passengers to serious risks, Mr. Conteh admitted that: “it is becoming difficult for us to control these bike riders. The police have been blamed randomly by the public of not being capable to curtail the reckless ways motor bike riders ply the city.
We have put in place different strategies to minimize the dangers of lawless riders, but all have proved futile. It is because of this that we agreed in a meeting with their association that we should use nails to puncture the tires and arrest defaulters.”
Superintendent Conteh further stated that: “we have told our men that this measure should only be used when the rider is alone.” He said there were people who knew that bike riders should not ply the centre of Freetown, but were still tempting the riders to ride them to these areas.
By Abdul Samba Brima
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