Introduce road safety classes in our schools

Although the number of road accidents dropped by 21 in December 2018 compared to the same period in 2017, the overall statistics still paint a grim picture.

The reintroduction of the Michuki rules has been credited with the slight reduction. Focus must now shift to pedestrians. They formed more than a third of the 3,146 lives lost last year to road accidents. While 745 passengers and 305 drivers perished on our roads, a whopping 1,203 pedestrians were killed.

This is a clear indication that while the Government has put more focus on creating road safety awareness among motorists and boda boda operators, this important segment of road users has been ignored. This is not too difficult to prove. While Nairobi is just beginning to expand pedestrian walks, these are almost non-existent in major towns in the country. The same can be said of road marks meant to protect pedestrians.

The Michuki rules are working for motorists and a task force is working on boda boda operators' safety. What, then, are we doing about pedestrians? Who represents them in road safety stakeholder forums?

This must change. A good point to start would be introducing mandatory road safety classes in our school curriculum right from the lower classes. It is unfortunate that we have students out there who do not know what traffic lights mean or even how and where to cross the road. This indicates that we are bringing up entire generations that might perish on our roads.

Such a curriculum cannot be hard to formulate if all stakeholders are involved. This would save lives long before they hit the roads.