No one else needs die on our roads

By Njoki Karuoya

Every day, a life is lost through a road accident. On certain days, tens of lives are lost, mostly through reckless driving by drivers, some of them drunk or incompetent.
According to international statistics, only ten countries are responsible for 48 per cent of the world’s traffic-related deaths. Kenya is one of these ten miserable countries. We should all be ashamed to be lumped together with nations like Brazil, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Russia, Turkey and Vietnam.
The situation is so bad that all these countries were singled out last year at a United Nations General Assembly (Resolution 64/255) for activities meant to reduce road deaths during the Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011–2020), also referred to as Road Safety in 10 Countries Project (RS-10).

Reduce road carnage

The goal of the RS-10 is to stabilise and then reduce the forecasted level of road accidents and fatalities. The UN resolution calls upon member states (including Kenya) to implement road safety activities, particularly in the areas of management, education, infrastructure, vehicle safety, road user behaviour and post-crash response.
Experts say that 90 per cent of road traffic deaths occur in low and middle-income countries, and Kenya proves this. Road traffic injuries are among the three leading causes of death for people aged between five and 44, and unless immediate and effective action is taken, road traffic injuries are predicted to become the fifth leading cause of death in Kenya and the world. They are also very expensive as they take up a major chunk of health budgets in treatment and reconstruction.
It thus makes common sense to do everything we can to reduce road accidents, casualties and fatalities as they will reduce suffering, unlock growth and free resources for more productive use. This requires goodwill and increased investment in road safety initiatives and programmes.
The guiding principles underlying the Plan for the Decade of Action are those included in the ‘safe system’ approach, which aims to develop a road transport system that is better able to accommodate human error and take into consideration the vulnerability of the human body. The approach considers human limitations, an important basis upon which to design the road infrastructure. This thus calls for a shifting of responsibility from road users to those currently designing our extensive vehicular transport infrastructure.
System designers include primarily road engineers, the automotive industry, police, politicians and legislative bodies. Other major players in road safety include health services, the judicial system, schools and non-governmental organisations. Similarly, individual road users have the responsibility to abide by laws and regulations.
In Kenya, when one thinks of the Kazi Kwa Vijana initiative, the picture of young people cutting grass and cleaning trenches comes to mind. So, after the grass is cut and the trenches cleaned, what next?
There is no doubt that the Kazi Kwa Vijana initiative is noble, so can some of the youth be re-directed towards road construction?

Best safety record

More local solutions are required to mitigate the increasing road accidents. Ghana has the best road safety record in Africa. The irony is that officials from this country came to Kenya to learn about road safety in the early 1980s. They implemented what they learnt, while we filed and forgot what we taught. It is time Kenya stopped being an ‘all talk but no action’ country. 
Road safety has to be embraced as a quality of life concept. While we must appreciate the efforts made by Government to improve the country’s road network, we must do something about our road accidents, which are spiralling out of control. Therefore, it cannot be business as usual. The UN General Assembly states that if we continue down this deadly path that we have long trodden, then road crashes will be the leading cause of death and disability for children aged five and above.
However, if we act now and implement new road safety strategies, then by 2020 (the close of the decade), our road crash fatalities will be reduced by at least 50 per cent. If we act now and implement new road safety strategies, we will save millions of lives.
If we act now and implement new road safety strategies, there will be a dramatic reduction in death and disability in children, and thousands can celebrate their birthdays.