Import of passenger buses in Somaliland with boarding doors located to the left banned

By Staff Writer

Hargeisa 13, November, 2018. The Ministry of Transport has issued a ministerial decree banning the import of public buses with doors to the left for safety reasons. Thousands of such buses are already crowding Hargeisa’s downtown bus stations.

 According to the ministry, these buses are contributing to the high rate of road accidents because some drivers do not have proper training and do not know how to navigate traffic and safety of passengers with such buses. Passengers have been run over by speeding cars as they alight from such buses.

The ministry has given operators with such buses one year to change the passenger door to the right.

There have been similar decrees in the past but the government did not follow them up, but there are those who believe that this decree might be enforced going by the rise in number of accidents and passenger injuries and casualties occasioned by these buses.