Omar Ceesay, President of the Gambia Transport Union, has described as “unlawful and dangerous” the use of motorised tricycles as commercial transport on Gambian roads.

The motorised tricycles are known in The Gambia as ‘Batch cars’ and in some countries as ‘Tuk Tuk’.

According to him, tricycles are categorised as private under the nation’s traffic act and that the law is against motorcycles for transporting passengers.

“According to the Motor Traffic Act, the tricycles are categorised as private motorcycles and according to law motorcycle cannot do the passenger transportation in the country, that means it is unlawful. 

“The law doesn’t give them the mandate to commute. So, tricycles being the private motor vehicles therefore you cannot give them commercial insurance and that means the passengers on board are not covered by the insurance,” he said.

“Number three, according to the traffic act, non-Gambians cannot drive motor commercial vehicles here and we did our study and we find out that the average tricycle drivers are not Gambians. That is also a concern.

“So, now we are engaging the government and the police to look at the issues of the tricycle some say it is good because it is easing the transportation burden.”

“But if you look, the taxis are four passenger seaters, but the tricycle has commercial insurance and I have seen eight to nine passengers on board a tricycle. That’s overloading and security wise that’s risky and tricycles can easily fall down.”

“And number two, we all know the way tricycles drive on the roads are very risky and dangerous because they do not follow the lanes of the roads and they violate the traffic rules. 

“So, for me, tricycles are unlawful, they cannot transport people and the law is against it and the passengers onboard them are not insured,” he added.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba