While the government is trying to bring back sanity on our roads, it’s a sad state of affairs as more and more Kenyans continue to lose their lives on the roads due to road accidents. The latest incident has been reported in Kiambu county where two people were killed in an early morning accident involving a 14-sitter matatu and a lorry at Ngemwa, in Githunguri.
According to reports from Kiambu OCPD William Barslip who confirmed the incident, the matatu was ferrying passengers from Githunguri to Nairobi when the lorry’s brakes failed moments before ramming into the matatu killing the two and injuring several others.
Kiambu county was in a recent report mentioned as the second county leading in road accidents after Nairobi.
Those injured were rushed to Kiambu Referral Hospital and discharged after receiving treatment. This comes barely a week after a shocking report emerged showing that road accidents in Kenya this year have claimed the lives of 2,626 people and seen 3,240 injured.
This accident comes in the wake of a major crackdown by the government to curb the road accident carnage in the country. After the shocking and disturbing report showed that over 6000 people have been victims of road accidents this year, Director of the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), Francis Mejja said that the police ought to strengthen security checks on the roads in a bid to tame rogue drivers as well as impound unroadworthy vehicles.
Inspector General of Police Boinnet has also assured Kenyans that the police force would be extra thorough as the festive season nears and will also exploit the use of technology.
“We have set up six teams to support the various county teams during this festive season. We have commenced the use of technology in Mombasa and Nairobi to make it easy to report incidences of offenders of the traffic laws,” said Boinnet.
Since the crackdown that began yesterday, over 2000 motorists have been arrested for not complying to the traffic rules.
“The figures that I am receiving now is that close to 2,000 offenders have been arrested. These include matatu operators, operators of private vehicles and even users of PSV vehicles who had not fastened up,” said the Inspector General of Police.
Speaking during a press briefing yesterday, Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet stated that among those arrested included drivers, conductors and even passengers who did not comply with the traffic regulations. He further indicated that private vehicles in which seat belts were not used had also been targeted in the crackdown.
There are police roadblocks in strategic places on roads countrywide in measures aimed at impounding vehicles that operate without complying with the set rules. Most of the arrests were made in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Nyeri, Machakos and Eldoret, even as many matatus were kept off the road for fear of being impounded.
Do you think the government will be able to deal with the issue of unroadworthy vehicles?