Five people died and 16 others were injured on Monday morning after a matatu collided with a trailer at Kapiti area on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway.
The 14-seater matatu was ferrying Akorino church faithful for a tour to Mombasa when the vehicle collided head-on with the Nairobi-bound truck.
Machakos Deputy Director for Emergency Services Festus Kitongu says it was not immediately clear what caused the collision.
Kenyan roads are notorious for road accidents. News on road accidents makes headlines for the newsrooms almost daily. Many Kenyans lose their lives, others suffer paralysis, others are amputated while the lucky ones have a painful memory to keep as long as they live.
The government has tried, since time immemorial to reduce the bulk of Kenyan lives that expire on Kenyan roads; starting from the famous Michuki Rules to the night travelling ban for public service vehicles.
Road accidents however remain untamed phenomena in Kenya, whose solution better be found sooner than later before it claims any more of Kenyan lives. But what really causes road accidents in Kenya?
These are mistakes made by humans that cost passengers’ lives on the Kenyan roads. The unfortunate fact about them is that they are completely preventable.
Whether or not they are deliberate, that does not matter. The fact is that they cause 85% of the documented road accidents, meaning that human error claims approximately 85% of lives that are lost on Kenyan roads. That is sad, isn’t it?