Minister Zabaneh Says Cycle Training is Cheaper Than Funeral

And despite the public uproar, the Ministry of Transport is not backing down from its proposed training mandate for motorcycle drivers. After one hundred and eight people were killed in road traffic accidents in 2024, fifty of those involving motorcycles, government felt obligated to strengthen enforcement of existing road laws and introduced new regulations geared at improving road safety for motorcycle drivers. Minister of Transport Dr. Louis Zabaneh says the mandate will be implemented and even if it is three hundred dollars, it is still less than the cost of a funeral.

 

Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport

“We’re not here to be jumping. When somebody passed social media say, oh, the three hundred dollars, that too much for poor man and this and the other. I like CEO’s answers on the media. Yeah. Castio 1,500 for your casket. Plus you have to add what you are causing the person who you crush into. What’s the cost to them? That if you, I don’t wanna say it so crudely, if you’re lucky for them, but I don’t wanna say it that way, but if you have the misfortune that you have to go to the hospital, right? And you are left like one vegetable, then your family who have to take care of you for the rest of your life. So for a little three week training, two week training. We had it up to six weeks. We brought it down to two weeks. That is the least we could ask. And then we didn’t say that $300 was what we are enforcing that you have to pay for, get trained. That’s the maximum”