Hours after all travellers aboard an Eldoret-bound matatu died in a dawn crash two weeks ago, police were busy removing the wreckage of another vehicle from the same spot.
The accident drew sharp focus on road safety and threatened to reverse a declining trend, although pedestrians make highest statistics of traffic-related deaths.
Passengers in the second crash were however lucky to get away with minor injuries, with police admitting of several near misses every hour along what should be Kenya’s safest road section.
So bad was the impact of the 4am head-on collision on the 14km stretch road that all seats of the matatu were ripped from the frame, with passengers suffering painful death – many from smashed skulls.
It was a horrific scene that shocked residents as they looked from a distance.
Run-over by cars
The matatu hit a cow before the driver swerved and rammed an on coming truck, a testament of how driving along the flat stretch of the road poses a grave danger to road-users.
In another similar crash last July, little Myles Ndung’u who was only 2 perished together with his entire family of brothers, mother, father, aunt and grandfather on a return trip from attending a burial in Nyeri.
Witnesses claimed his father, Gerald Munyi who was driving may have been overtaking before the saloon car was rammed by a bus from behind and an oncoming truck.
Speed and failure to observe lane discipline was cited in the accident, in what has become a common narrative amid calls to make the road a dual carriage to avert loss of lives.
Statistics from the National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA) indicate the stretch as the most dangerous in Kenya.
A brief prepared by the Authority sent to the Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia details how the otherwise perfect section of the highway claims more lives than any other.
Nakuru County reported the second highest prevalence of fatalities in 2016, after Nairobi which has higher pedestrian deaths, along the highway commonly referred to as the Northern Corridor.
“This would greatly aid in reducing the number of crashes in the subject area especially the often high-fatality head-on collisions,” said Duncan Kibogong, NTSA deputy director in charge of safety, on the need to make the road a dual carriage.
A bigger pedestrian population in Nairobi would explain why the county reported the highest prevalence of deaths of road users run-over by cars on the busy Mombasa Road on the South and Waiyaki Way to the North.
Despite the high traffic, only 8 per cent of the crashes occurred in Nairobi.
But nearly all accidents reported on the Nakuru killer stretch are a result of head-on collisions, as evidenced by the mangled wreckage at Salgaa Police Station.
NTSA reports that a third of all crashes along the 940km road from Mombasa to Busia happen in Nakuru – one of the ten counties that the Northern Corridor touches.
A toxic mix of driver behaviour informed by tendency to speed owing to good visibility on the stretch and the gentle gradient means drivers could opt to freewheel in their misinformed bid to save on fuel.
For heavy commercial vehicles, Mr Kibogong said, disengaging gears would almost always lead to loss of control especially in need for emergency braking.
“We have sensitised drivers but it is still fairly rampant,” he said in an interview.
Assessment of the number of vehicles using the road does not suggest that the traffic throughput was high enough to justify the accident prevalence in the area.
Poor road lighting at night has also been blamed for accidents over the stretch which compounds the effect of fading road markings.
High level illumination
Kibogong told CS Macharia in the brief on the need for high level illumination on the killer stretch.
Despite being significantly longer, the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway is responsible for only 38 per cent of the deaths according to NTSA.
Eng Peter Mundinia, Director General of the Kenya National Highways Authority (Kenha), said a redesign was necessary to avoid further loss of lives.
Among the emergency measures his agency is planning is lighting up the road as pointed out by NTSA and construction of an emergency landing ramp to help drivers stop the vehicles when they have lost control.
“A landing ramp made of sand would help vehicles stop even after brakes fail,” Mundinia said, referring to the planned developments on the road targeting heavy commercial vehicles.
Contracts for the construction of the sand landing ramps are scheduled to be signed by June 2018.
Mundinia blamed driver indiscipline for most of the crashes, specifically where cars are driven on the wrong lanes especially when overtaking.
At least 1,000 lives have been lost on the section of the road falling within Nakuru, currently responsible for three out of every five road accidents in the county.
Official data shows that a fifth of all deaths linked to road accidents countrywide occur on the Northern Corridor – a huge proportion within Nakuru County.
On the long term, Kenha is engaging four international contractors to design, build and operate a dual carriageway on the nearly 200km road from Rironi in Kiambu to Mau Summit.
Initial estimates place the construction costs at Sh180 billion and to be built over four years.
Motorists would however be required to pay for using the road in a tolling system until the costs are recovered by the contractor before management of the road is handed back to Kenha.
“A third party private toll operator will be contracted for the purpose of establishing the tolling systems and subsequently collecting the tolls,” Kenha said in its project justification for the Private-Public-Partnership approach to funding the road development.
The tolling revenues will be used to fund the service payments to the contractor, the agency said, but warns that the Government might be forced to plug in any revenue shortfalls.
“Preliminary assessments indicate that the proceeds from tolling over the life of the project should be sufficient to cover the Service Payment obligations but in the event of a shortfall, Government will make good any deficit.”
A pricing formula is yet to be determined indicating how much road users would be paying per kilometre, reminiscent of the tolling system which was phased out in the 1980s.
Plans are also underway to introduce the tolling system for the corridor section between Mombasa and Nairobi when the American contractor awarded the tender to build and operate finishes work.
In the overall, what is Kenya’s deadliest road today should actually be the safest, in a scary paradox confirmed by deaths attributed to crashes.
