More still needs to be done to ensure road safety for all

The presidential order that National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) officers be withdrawn from the roads came as a surprise, albeit a pleasant one. Public outrage over NTSA’s apparent inability to secure Kenyan roads from wanton accidents has been growing.

Established through an act of Parliament in October 2012, one of the core functions of NTSA was to effectively manage and reduce road accidents through the enforcement of traffic rules and regulations in toto.

Its vision to create an efficient, reliable and safe road network fell flat on its face. What finally put NTSA in the spotlight was the December 13, 2017 incident at Sachangwan in which it was claimed- though later denied by NTSA's Director General Francis Meja- that officers chasing had a trailer driver speeding away from them made the latter to cause multiple accidents involving 13 vehicles, killing 32 people.

A series of accidents a few days apart along the same Salgaa- Sachangwan stretch, as well as other parts across the country that resulted in over 140 deaths in a matter of weeks, simply portrayed NTSA as incompetent. Its inception had offered hope that the culture of bribe taking by traffic police officers would be a thing of the past. Little did the public know how ineffectual it would become.

In the past few days, in characteristic knee-jerk reaction, or, to be fair, the case of too little too late, NTSA had undertaken measures that have not been too reassuring, even as fatal accidents continue to be reported. Something needed to be done, and fast too.

The withdrawal of NTSA from the roads is only the first step that should precipitate more drastic action. Bribe-taking traffic police officers should be on notice that going forward, it will not be business as usual.

Law enforcers need to appreciate that saving lives on the roads through strict enforcement of traffic rules is not negotiable. The conscience of officers who take a Sh50 bribe from a defective vehicle only for it to kill people a few minutes later should trouble them.

Besides withdrawing NTSA from the roads, other factors, among them the bad state of roads, should be addressed. As much as human error and disregard for regulations cause accidents, bad roads have a big role to play.

Institutions charged with road safety need to put their heads together and not wait for the president to set the ball rolling.