First, I want to state the painful fact that accidents are caused by a series of errors by all the parties on the road; the cops, passengers, drivers, conductors, owners of vehicles, the government and pedestrians. Most of the times we get away with our mistakes on the roads. We tend to forget the punishment for recklessness until we lose a close one.
Let me start with the Githurai roundabout accident. Here you have an overloaded bus, speeding at 70km/hr. The driver wants to negotiate a corner which can only be done at a maximum of 30km/hr, there is also a bump before the corner. Still at the same place, there are hawkers carrying everything, from eggs to socks trying out customers boarding the 14-seater Matatus aside the highway, illegally. Note that there is a legitimate bus stage where passengers should board and alight but for some sheer and vague reason they opt for the perilous and illegal roadside stage. The traffic cops, on the other hand, are just across the road collecting some bribe, its the fruit of their labour, anyway.
Normally, a bus at 70km/hr in good mechanical order can decelerate to 30km/hr in a distance of 40 metres, albeit causing some inertia distress on the passengers. However, when the bus is overloaded, say with an excess of 10 persons at an average of 70 Kg, that makes it 700 kg excess weight which translates to increased load on the breaks. Again, this bus is not in good condition, so the breaks 'refuse'. Worse still, there are Matatus and hawkers at the road side, illegally. The bus misses the way, running over people in the process and rolls over, resulting to more fatalities given the excess number of passengers in the bus.
Take a second example, in your fresh memory;the Ntulele case. Here we have a driver who has been awake for the last 12 hours, or more. I am sure you know that in Kenya even night guards don't sleep much during the day, they go on hustling. By 1 am, it is possible the driver could have been awake for more than 15 hours, so his judgement is impaired and sharpness lost. The owners of the city to city bus have been paying bribes to evade annual inspection, so the bus is unsound, mechanically.
Possibly, (given the distance from the highway to where the bus stopped), the driver was doing some high speed. From the numbers given after the accident, the bus was overloaded, definitely. The passenger on the co-driver seat doesn't take responsibility to ensure the driver is awake and the other passengers at the back don't caution the driver on over speeding or carrying excess passengers. In such a case the driver misses a few seconds of awareness and the next thing is shocking news headlines.
From the above cases, we can do some notes;
Passengers and pedestrians
As the major potential casualties, these parties should take it in their hands to ensure road rules are followed to the letter. If in the above cases they had talked out against over speeding and excess passengers, the turn of events could have been different.
Owners of PSVs
I would say that greed beats creed, when it comes to them. They care much, if not most, about their returns at the expense of the customer. To them its cheaper to spend 10 thousand shillings a month to bribe police cops instead of using 5 thousand to service their vehicles and take them to annual inspection. The president's order to hold them responsible was long overdue.
Drivers
Sometimes they work on overtime. They ignore their safety first, and even the safety of their passengers. They know its a crime to break traffic rules, grossly. They only care about the cash they will get by overloading the vehicles. 80% of accidents reported in Kenya involve a tired, drunk or an over speeding driver.
Manufacturers
The good journalist Onyango Obbo highlighted the technical ignorance on the part of the manufacturers when making the bodies. The Kenyan market considers high buses as cool. The aspect of balance and pressure on wheels is brushed aside.
Traffic police
No comment.
Conclusion
Accidents can be prevented. One factor, in many of the times, does not result to fatalities. A new, well checked bus carrying excess people, driven carefully is as safe as any other bus. An old bus, properly maintained and serviced, carrying the required number of passengers driven well is equally safe, if not safer. The bottom point, accidents are preventable incidents, lets take responsibility.
No comments:
Post a Comment