Why excessive use of bumps on roads is bad for business

While on some recent travel to Runyenjes in Embu, I noticed that traffic slows down substantially on exiting the Nairobi-Nyeri highway to join the one to Meru through Kirinyaga and Embu. Why? On account of road bumps.

This highway has all manner of bumps. Several sections have rumble strips that one can either run over at moderate speed, else tremendously slow down, risking taking hits from the rear traffic.

This highway had bumps before. But they have been increased lately. It’s hard to do three clear kilometres without encountering some bumps or rumble strips. That most of them are unmarked makes them quite difficult and frustrating to negotiate.

Today, a drive to Embu, Runyenjes, Chuka or Meru will take disproportionately long, for the mundane distances involved. The collective time lost may be unjustifiable and bad for business.

Indeed, I have noticed that quite some traffic to Meru has lately shifted to the Nanyuki route, much as the option is much longer. But of course, everyone will rush to provide the simplistic answer that the bumps are meant to check speeds and accidents.

Listen to many Kenyans talk after road accidents and a common refrain is “twaomba serikali itujengee bumps kuzuia ajali zingine hapa” (We ask the government to erect bumps to prevent some accidents here), an appeal to the government for the erection of bumps at the accident spot.

Granted, in some places, well-designed and signposted bumps can help to reduce accidents. But their excessive use is counterproductive.

Indeed, bumps, particularly if unmarked, could be a source of accidents and loss of lives too, and, compounded by the associated time delays, could be a worse solution for responding to highway accidents.

I suspect that a focused study may show a correlation between some highway accidents and the ad hoc unmarked bumps on some of our roads. I think our engineers should confront this problem more boldly, much as road accidents evoke deep human emotions.

That some miraa transporting vehicle, or some drunk driver, causes an accident may have nothing to do with a lack of bumps, but with speeding or drunk driving. These call for different solutions, not bumps.

That donkey carts, tri-cycles and boda bodas are more often involved in accidents may not be for lack of bumps. But targeted advocacy on the appropriate use of roads by this category of utility vessels and pedestrians may mitigate this a lot better.

I only used the Nairobi-Embu-Meru highway for illustration. While high-speed miraa vans may have driven the erection of more bumps per unit length on this road than on others in Kenya, the overzealous erection of bumps cuts countrywide.

Engineers, traffic managers, community and political leaders need to work together to formulate better solutions. It is bad business to invest big in the construction of excellent highways, only to degrade their speed and comfort levels to the equivalent of earth roads through the erection of excessive bumps.

I am sure we can improve on this.