During this year’s Madaraka Day celebrations in Nairobi, President Kibaki raised concerns on rising road carnage that continues to claim lives, leaving many in grief.
The President cautioned drivers to be keen on traffic rules and ordered a crackdown on errant drivers. As usual, traffic police officers heeded the call and ‘harassed’ motorists for some time before the status quo made its way back to the roads.
This short term fix is inadequate déjà vu. I would have been happier to hear the President establish an accidents authority that would craft a strategic plan, rigorously monitored, to eliminate the loss of lives on our roads and to improve road manners.
Now accidents have returned to claim more lives on our roads thanks to human error among other causes. Can’t we find a permanent solution to road carnage? Is the Government doing its best in assuring safety on the roads? I doubt.
{Robert Kimutai, Nairobi}
Evidently, we have turned all our faculties to the incessant terror attacks, oblivious of the perpetual road carnages.
It is quite discreditable that the Minister for Transport has been nonchalant in taming the rising rate of road accidents, but hope the Traffic Amendment Bill will be law sooner and help restore sanity on the roads.
Unfortunately, these accidents come when the country boasts of vibrant traffic laws popularly known as the ‘Michuki Rules’ – though it seems they were literally buried with their late father, former Minister John Michuki.
It is sad that, in the recent past, road carnages and grenade attacks seem to have conspired against Kenya. Though we may have no control over accidents, a lot needs to change in the way we operate.
The culture of matatu conductors and drivers bribing traffic officers openly, and passengers alighting metres away from roadblocks only to walk or ride on waiting boda bodas past the officers and wait to be stacked again into the matatus after police have received ‘their due’ must end.
That matatus pay some figures in the first trips and operate with impunity in the subsequent trips as officers pretend to be busy on ‘phone calls’ must also stop.
Hopefully, the new law will give citizens a role to play in curbing road accidents and carnage.
{Onderi M Dennis, Gucha}
Who will save us now from these deaths? It is sad that, in two consecutive days, road accidents have claimed more than 20 lives.
The road accidents need to be minimised at all costs. There is need to save innocent travellers from premature deaths and this will only be achieved through co-operation of all stakeholders including Government agencies, traffic police, motorists and pedestrians.
Kenyans are, to some extent, to blame for road accidents. Why, for instance, would someone – for greed and self-centeredness – steal guardrails and sell them as scrap metal? This inhuman act has exposed both motorists and pedestrians to danger. Authorities must fight against theft of guardrails by arresting and charging any scrap metal dealer found in possession of them.
The Kenya National Highways Authority need to maintain roads in good conditions so as to end exposure of motorists and pedestrians to grave danger along the highways.
Ministry of Transport on the other hand needs to wake up, be active and help in fight against the escalating road carnage.
It needs to be mandatory for all drivers to attend refresher courses and be updated with the improvement in the road infrastructure.
The neglected and forgotten Michuki Rules needs to be fully implemented.
{Kenneth Irungu, Maseno}
The Government should declare road accidents a national disaster.
{Orina Abel, Kericho}
Why is Kenya so vulnerable to terrorism?
The hullaballoo around the capture of two Iranians who are alleged to be Tehran-sponsored terror squad or mercenaries and who were stealthily planning a series of terror attacks against the State of Israel and other Western countries’ interests in Kenya is chilling, to say the least.
We’ve to salute our security personnel for a commendable job done in detecting, arresting the suspects and for unearthing their deadly schemes that could have resulted into a massive catastrophe if it could have been executed.
This clearly confirms that, indeed, the country’s national security and stability is under real threat from local, regional and international terror groups. It’s really shocking that this Iranians and their sponsors have the audacity to chose Kenya to execute the heinous acts.
The million dollar question is, why Kenya? Is Kenya becoming a soft spot or a weakling where international mercenaries and other criminals just walk in and out, and execute terror activities carelessly? Doesn’t this speak volumes about how foreign governments and terrorists rate us, as a country?
What this means is that, Kenya is not respected abroad and more worrying, the country’s overall reputation is in tatters. All this, courtesy of our inept and mediocre leaders, who have brought us immense international shame.
If our security machinery don’t change strategy and tactics in the wake of mounting dangers that threaten to wipe Kenya off the face of the earth, we are slowly but systematically, joining the list of failed States. This is a painful fact.
No serious government can be subjected to such terror activities and still afford to bury it’s head in the sand hoping the terrorists will just disappear on their own.
Never before, since independence, has our national security and stability been under imminent threats by amorphous militia groups like now. The general fear and apprehension has now reached simply unacceptable and alarming levels.
It’s during such trying and difficult times that a great, pragmatic, inspiring and unifying leader emerges to not only lead from the front and eradicate this mind-boggling state of insecurity, fear, tension and uncertainty, but also, restore national hope, unity and pride of Kenyans that is now at it’s lowest ebb.
