When criticism erupted that motorized tricycles belonging to Oway were breaking traffic rules, an investigation was launched by the company, supposedly resulting in the fact that those were in fact not company owned.

Mini Oway, a sub branch of Oway for managing smaller vehicles such as tricycles, has been operating their motorized tricycles in Mandalay for nearly a year. While many other companies exist in the market to compete with services rendered by Mini Oway, most residents of Mandalay have supposedly been lumping all tricycles to belong to Oway, especially those that regularly violate road rules.

The company’s officials have said that they are working on solving this issue.

“Most Mandalay people referred to these vehicles as owned by Mini Oway Company.  All the violations of road rules by three-wheeled motorbikes are thought to be from Mini Oway Company. When we checked on these vehicles, it was found out that they are not from our company,” said Kyaw Min Swe, senior-director of Mini Oway.

As the numbers of three-wheeled motorbikes in Mandalay have increased, the rate of accidents occuring have risen, leading to Mandalay residents posting about accidents on Social Media platforms such as Facebook.

“There are certain roads prohibited for use by these three-wheeled motorbikes. But to get around these roads, they will enter and exit from other side roads or streets at high speeds and have caused accidents. Once, I happened upon one of those accidents myself and tried to know which company it belonged to. But it was neither Oway, Grab nor Get. I couldn’t submit a complaint because it didn’t belong to any organization,” said an office worker from Mandalay.

Mini Oway Company has instructed their drivers about road safety and road rules systematically before they were allowed to operate those motorized tricycles. Monitoring has been made 24 hours for safety of the commuters. Violation of road rules, if found, will be punished while those that continuously abide by road rules are rewarded. At present, motorized tricycles have been painted into a more noticeable blue color representing Oway’s colours, and commuters are better off calling them through the Oway application or on-field centers for a safe journey.