Curb road carnage

THE loss of about 40 people in road accidents in just two days should jolt us all into introspection. Something is terribly wrong with roads becoming death traps. It is particularly damning that most of the accidents have occurred on the NakuruEldoret highway.

Tuesday’s crash that claimed 16 lives occurred at Sachang’wan, the very place where more than 100 people died in 2009 when an oil tanker overturned and burst into flames.

Paradoxically, a prayer service was held at the spot at the weekend to seek divine intervention. Accounts differ, but the dominant narrative is that Tuesday’s smash was a result of a bungled operation by National Transport and Safety Authority officials, who had sought to seize a trucker, but who lost control and rammed another vehicle, causing multiple crashes. The NTSA discounted that account. Reckless driving, faulty vehicles, poor road conditions, bribery and ineffective enforcement of rules remain the major causes of accidents.

Strategies to end the road carnage have floundered and it is for this reason the government set up the NTSA, purposely to give undivided attention to road safety. Evidence, however, now demonstrates that it is not any better. While traffic police were often roundly vilified for operating bribery cartels on the roads, the NTSA has not done any better. Our roads remain dangerous. The government must declare total war on the road carnage. It must rein in careless drivers, seize defective vehicles, uproot corrupt cartels on the roads and enforce rules.

The Kenya National Highway Authority and other agencies should review the design of the notorious roads. Importantly, the NTSA and traffic police must be held to account.