Road safety authority big let-down to Kenyans

It might have escaped those at the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) that this is the 21 century, and that Kenya is a civilised society guided by the rule of law when they made suggestions that drunk drivers be forced to work in morgues.

Laws, in any case, are designed to be corrective, not punitive, which NTSA is suggesting. Needless to say, it is exactly this type of retrogressive thinking that guarantees NTSA remains an unnecessary drain on the taxpayers’ money as it fails to competently execute its mandate in the face of increasing road deaths and road indiscipline.

Morgue attendants did not take this proposal sitting down, and rightly so. They have castigated NTSA Director Francis Meja for denigrating their job as morgue attendants despite Meja having later denied having made the suggestion. NTSA’s work is cut out for it, yet why it is unable to instil road discipline and minimise deaths on the roads remains a puzzle. The country is tired of the grim statics of deaths on the roads that keep coming out of NTSA.

Factors that contribute to road carnage are known. NTSA must address them with the seriousness they deserve. This demands that NTSA stops seeking simplistic solutions to a complex problem.

Drink-driving is only part of a long list of problems that make our roads unsafe. These include bad roads, defective vehicles, missing road signage and corruption. NTSA officers have joined traffic police officers in soliciting for bribes from motorists. These are the problems Meja needs to confront head-on.