Overloading is a gradual car killer

There are many things that literally “help” us to gradually spoil our vehicles. This is done through stubbornness or outright ignorance.
Overloading is a traffic offence that is punishable by the law but drivers go ahead to commit it. Taxi operators do it with impunity and ultimate arrogance even when they know they will be pushed.
They repeatedly overload but unknown to them, they are doing more damage simply because they need to make some extra bucks.
I was in Busesa, near Iganga District recently but the torture that is public transport I had to endure was just too much.
Throughout my journey, the drivers, for unknown reasons, kept shifting us from one overloaded taxi to another and it was an awful experience.
For sure I had taken long without being subjected to the four passenger rule but here I was squeezed between three people.
Imagine we had to travel from Busesa to Bweyogerere in Kampala in such discomfort and it seemed normal to the people who ply that route.
Away from Busesa, if you have travelled out of Masaka Town to Nyendo or deeper into the district, you have probably boarded a saloon car where overloading is given another definition.
An Ipusm that has a sitting capacity of seven passengers will load up to 12 people with two seated in the front passenger seat that strictly takes one person.
This might sound exaggerated but anyone who has used the Bukomansimbi-Semababule route will testify to this.

Why vehicles overloaded
We all want money and lots of it and that is one of the reasons most people overload their cars.
Be it a taxi, a commercial truck or a bus, money is the ultimate target and little attention is given to the health of the car.
A car is made with a particular body weight and description of up to what it can load. Therefore, it is expected not to go beyond a certain load.
You have perhaps seen cars that are loaded to the brim.
For instance, there are pictures that have been making rounds on social media with a cow stuffed in a saloon car and another of bunches of matooke bloating through windscreens of a Toyota Ipusm.
All these boarder on the extreme and indeed they expose your car to obnoxious damage that turns out expensive and with the potential to cause chronicle mechanical problems.
The weight of a car, especially from Japanese manufacturers, is usually displayed on a sticker at the rear side of the car therefore exceeding prescribed weight subjects it to more work than the ideal.
An overloaded car exposes the shock absorbers, tyres and strains the car’s engine thus causing high consumption of fuel.
You have seen overloaded cars with the bumper almost kissing the ground and tyres are scratching as if asking for help. This presents great danger to the car and has far reaching implications.

Dangers of overloading
Overloading can cause tyres to burst because the car uses double energy to perform or move.
Secondly, the engine will be at pain to deliver over and above expected performance, which puts every section of the car at risk.
Overloading a car weakens the engine and in most cases drivers overlook their own input in damaging their cars.
They forget that they are the cause to an otherwise avoidable vice.
However, beyond damaging the car, overloaded cars are a danger on the road. Therefore, traffic police must be vigilant especially in regard to clamping down the vice.