Looking at road transport management, one acknowledges that the work the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has to do to keep Kenyans safe on the road is quite a lot. Yet the transition from the Traffic Police Department to NTSA has had little success, to say the least.
On any given day, one witnesses flagrant violation of the Highway Code that endangers both life and limb. An obvious case is that of drivers of trucks and lorries who contemptuously disregard other road users. Other motorists have to drive behind uncovered trucks loaded with huge boulders hanging precariously, loose sand and logs. The loose soil and sand easily get blown into the eyes and nostrils of other road users and therefore, risk causing accidents. It is also not uncommon to come across unroadworthy vehicles. Or doesn’t road safety also involve clamping down on vehicles that slow down traffic and thereby necessitating dangerous over-taking by impatient motorists?
NTSA, it seems, has not got the hang of the nightmarish traffic snarl-ups Kenyans experience, especially on major roads occasioned by an accident or a mechanical problem, or bad driving habits. A good example is yesterday’s snarl-up from Athi River to Maanzoni on the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway that actually started on Sunday night. The situation was made worse by drivers overlapping on the side of the road. Some motorists were stuck for almost six hours in that gridlock. Could this have been avoided? Of course, yes.
One would have thought that by now NTSA has formed rapid response teams to help in times of emergency such as these. Or better still, that they have a system through which they can warn other motorists to avoid certain roads at certain times and hence aid in the smooth flow of traffic!
In fact yesterday morning, some NTSA officers were busy on Mombasa road arresting pedestrians near Imara Daima stage for not using the flyover to get to the other side of the busy road.
While it is important for pedestrians to cross roads at designated places, NTSA needs to have a wider view of road safety and traffic management.
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