The Minister for Works and Transport, General Edward Katumba Wamala, has announced that wearing helmets will be mandatory for all motorcycle riders and passengers to help reduce fatalities in accidents.
Wamala made these remarks while addressing the media on Friday, February 28, 2025, at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala, where he urged passengers to take responsibility by wearing helmets to avoid becoming part of road accident statistics.
“The operations for riders without helmets will resume, and in the future they are going to charge both the motorcycle rider and the passenger for not wearing helmets,” Katumba said.
Katumba further stressed that suppliers of motorcycles have also been ordered to sell motorcycles with two helmets, one for the rider and one for the passenger.
“All suppliers of motorcycles are now required to sell a motorcycle with two helmets, and for every motorcycle to be registered, it must have two ISO standard helmets,” Katumba added.
According to Emma Okiria, the Advocacy Officer at Legacy Road Safety Initiative, there is a need for the public to step up for safety and take responsibility for their lives.
“This is a collective responsibility, and we are supposed to be very vigilant while driving or riding because most accidents are caused because of texting while driving. Many of us drive while texting. We call upon the general public to be careful while on the roads,” Okiria said.
SP Michael Kananura, the traffic police spokesperson, also cautioned all road users about road safety and warned about serious disciplinary actions for traffic law offenders.
“For some of the cases, we shall choose to hold you for 48 hours and take you to court because some of you have normalised paying fines of 200,000 Uganda shillings, and the next day you repeat the same offence.” Kananura said.
According to Kananura, the police’s Annual Crime Report released in 2025 shows that road traffic crashes increased from 23,608 in 2023 to 25,107 in 2024. Of the total reported cases, 4,434 were fatal, 1,314 were classified as serious, and 7,539 were minor.
