Speeding kills, but a drunk driver just as likely to end up in a pile-up

Police and Red Cross officials at the scene of an accident. A survey has revealed that most accidents are caused by speeding and drink-driving. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Survey reveals that most Kenyans blame road accidents on careless driving and alcoholism as few point to poor state of roads

Drunk-driving is one of the key causes of road accidents in the country, according to a new study whose results were released on Friday.

Some 58 people out of every 100 have reported that the accidents they witness on the roads were due to drunk drivers.

However, a larger number of people, 71 per cent, believe that road accidents are caused by excessive speeding.

Only seven per cent of the people feel that pedestrians have a responsibility to be careful on the roads.

According to the Ipsos Synovate survey, most Kenyans do not take personal responsibility for their own safety on the road.

Instead, they want the police to take care of road safety entirely, says the poll.  Of these, 64 per cent said the police had the responsibility of ensuring road safety.

The respondents said road accidents could be reduced through law enforcement, caution of motorists and pedestrians.

Road safety campaigns

The poll, conducted in July 2012,  also showed that road safety campaigns driven by popular brands or embedded in entertaining programmes have more impact than those sponsored by government agencies.

Other causes of accidents were irresponsible motorists, poor road conditions and use of vehicles that should otherwise not be on the road. 

Other accidents also happened as a result of distraction caused when drivers are using cell phones as they drive.

“Our findings support the many cases where people say the driver was driving at high speed and yet they often don’t request him to slow down until it’s too late,” says Iposos Synovate managing director Margaret Ireri.

“The tendency by Kenyans to leave road safety to the police instead of taking personal responsibility for their own safety is one of the reasons people continue to die on our roads.”

Some 2,000 Kenyans aged 18 and over were interviewed in the survey across all eight regions of the country.

Careless driving was the leading cause of road accidents across all the eight regions, according to the respondents.

Accidents caused through poor road conditions were much fewer, indicating the efforts put by the Kibaki administration into improving the sector could be bearing fruit.

According to the 2012 Economic Survey, overall expenditure for the ministry of Roads in the 2011/2012 was expected to rise by 34.4 per cent, from Sh 61.2 billion to Sh 82.3 billion.

“Relying on the police to enforce discipline on the roads will never reduce accidents because they are too few to cover the whole country,” Ms Ireri said, suggesting that our road safety campaigns messages need to be more compelling.

The release of the findings come just a moth after the Transport ministry announced it would launch a road safety campaign in an effort to reduce carnage.

Permanent secretary Cyrus Njiru said the ministry had completed a review of the Highway Code to address the causes of high road accidents.

“We have completed the review on the driving curriculum and we are now mapping all driving licenses in Kenya so that we can retest these drivers on the new Highway Code, “ he said.

Use of the new roads

Both pedestrians and drivers needed to be enlightened on reading the new signs and how they were expected to use the new roads such as the Nairobi-Thika highway.

The PS said Parliament’s planned amendments to the Traffic Bill 2012 and enforcement into law was on course.

“Parliament has already received all the amendments we want made on the Traffic Bill,” he said.

The study proposed that road safety campaigns adopt an integrated approach that would cover sensitisation of and enforcement of traffic rules.

“It is critical to put in place an effective transparent and corrupt free mechanism that will enable enforcement of traffic rules,” it said.