Enforce traffic laws to curb road accidents

While accidents are not confined to happening at night, a bigger percentage of tragic accidents reported in Kenya in the past few months have occurred at night.

The Karai incident in Naivasha that claimed 43 lives on December 11, 2016 occurred at night.

In the wee hours of Monday this week, 25 people died in a grisly accident at Kambu, Makueni County, along the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway.

While a 2016 report by the National Transport and Safety Authority indicated 1,585 died between January and June 2016, the question is; for how long will deaths on our roads continue to be a matter of statistics?

Night travel by Public Service Vehicles had at some point been banned and the resultant reduction in road carnage was something to celebrate.

But just like the highly effective Michuki rules were left to die away, so have Public Service Vehicles, some without licences, to resume night travel.Yet it is only after such accidents that NTSA will declare such.

There is urgent need to re-look into the night travel ban because most drivers are susceptible to making mistakes at night when visibility is seriously hampered.

The knowledge that traffic policemen, even though they are not much help themselves, emboldens some drivers to break the rules at great cost. Enhancing road safety must be prioritised.