Puzzle of increasing accidents but with few traffic offences

The wreckage of a car that was involved in an accident in Gilgil, Nakuru, on January 9, 2022. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

Kenya is experiencing a high number of accidents and road deaths despite the decreasing number of traffic offences recorded by police.

Data from the National Police Service (NPS), submitted to the National Council on Administration of Justice (NCAJ) indicate that in the last four years, only 1,000 traffic offences, labelled as serious were recorded, with the 2022-2023 financial year having 132 cases only.

However, data on road carnage indicate 21,757 road carnage casualties and 4,960 deaths for the same period.

Despite the NCAJ report being a permanent record of what is happening, the numbers presented by the police differ in this year’s and last year’s reports.

In this year’s report, the serious traffic offences data recorded for the year 2018 financial year is 213. However, in the previous report, data for the same year was 325.

Further, the two NCAJ documents have a difference of 46 cases for the year 2019, 73 cases for 2020, and in the year 2021, the two documents indicate that the cases were 123 and 132 respectively.

NCAJ indicated in the report that the government needs reclassification and decriminalisation of minor traffic offences.

At the same time, it recommended a review of traffic laws and guidelines, and development of traffic information handbook book and the adoption of technology in the management of traffic offences.

Further, the council wants to enhance information sharing of traffic offenders among the justice sector actors.

It is only traffic, corruption, and offences involving police officers that have two and three-digit numbers, while the rest have above 1000 cases.

From the data released on Tuesday this week, number of traffic cases decreased by 42 as compared to last year.

Further, despite corruption being recorded as Kenya’s biggest challenge, the numbers on record from the police on corruption tell of a very different picture.

Former President Uhuru Kenyatta said Kenya loses Sh2 billion daily to corruption. However, from the data by the police, only 126 cases were reported in 2019, 100 (2020), 142 in 2021, 93 in 2022, and 96 in the 2023 financial year.

The numbers from last year’s NCAJ report are however again different. For example, last year’s report indicated police recorded 123 corruption cases in 2021. However, this year’s report the same year was said to have 93 cases only.

On crimes involving police, NCAJ’s report released by Chief Justice Martha Koome indicates police recorded 131 crime cases committed by their colleagues in the last financial year. At the same time, the recorded cases for 2022 were 70 while in 2021, they were 60. In 2020, the recorded cases were 85, and in 2019, there were 184 cases.

However, the numbers in the previous report are different.