Will stiff penalties change Kenyan motorists’ bad driving habits?
What you need to know:
The accidents on the country’s roads not only cause deaths, but also injury and losses amounting to billions of shillings. According to the Ministry of Transport, thousands of man hours are lost during the recovery period of injured people.
The majority of road crashes on our roads are preventable. Poor road safety culture and failure to strictly enforce traffic rules are chiefly to blame for the high accident casualty rate.
Statistics indicate that Kenya has some of the highest road accident fatality rates globally. In 2009, for instance, the country recorded 10 deaths in road accidents for every 100,000 people, with 3,760 Kenyans perishing that year. Compare this to 3.2 deaths for every 100,000 people in Nigeria and Rwanda the same year.
Kenya loses about 3,000 people through road accidents every year.
Human error accounts for about 85 per cent of the accidents.
The accidents on the country’s roads not only cause deaths, but also injury and losses amounting to billions of shillings. According to the Ministry of Transport, thousands of man hours are lost during the recovery period of injured people.
The majority of road crashes on our roads are preventable. Poor road safety culture and failure to strictly enforce traffic rules are chiefly to blame for the high accident casualty rate.
Statistics indicate that Kenya has some of the highest road accident fatality rates globally. In 2009, for instance, the country recorded 10 deaths in road accidents for every 100,000 people, with 3,760 Kenyans perishing that year. Compare this to 3.2 deaths for every 100,000 people in Nigeria and Rwanda the same year.
Globally, 3,500 people die in road accidents every day. The total cost of is Sh40 trillion.
Road accidents kill more people than tuberculosis and malaria in developing nations.
They are the leading cause of death among young people aged 15 to 29, killing more youths than HIV/Aids in developing countries like Kenya.
Some are maimed for life.
One of the reasons for the high number of accidents has been lack of heavy penalties for offenders.
At the beginning of this month, President Kibaki signed the Traffic (Amendment) Act 2012 into law.
The law is expected to reduce road accidents.
The Business Daily has highlighted a number of issues in the new law which, if implemented to the letter, will force motorists to become more disciplined and reduce road accidents.
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