Hey Mr Driver! scale down please

• Speaking up over reckless driving can scale down road accidents, report says

“Why did you board vehicles which were already full?” Mr Tamar asked the accused, “You are your own safety when you observe traffic rules,” he told them and ordered them to pay a fine of Sh2,000 each or serve two months imprisonment in default.

Mr Stephen Wakaba of the Matatu Drivers and Conductors Association agreed with the findings of the research, calling on passengers to take control of driving by voicing concerns whenever vehicles were driven carelessly.

“Passengers must make it a habit of shouting at a driver whenever they feel he is not doing his work well,” he said. “We will be glad if there are passengers who would stop a driver, snatch his keys and hand them over to the conductor if that would save their lives by preventing irresponsible driving.”

Mr Wakaba said it was sad that some passengers who survived accidents were quick to narrate how dangerously the vehicles were being driven.

He said his association was pushing for safe driving and had advised against drink driving. He warned drivers with the notion that insuring their vehicles was all they needed to do, saying that they should always guard against losing lives.

The Matatu Drivers and Conductors Association boss also spoke against drivers working long hours.

“We have seen drivers who fall asleep on the roads leading to road accidents,” he said.

His assertion came on a day when the government announced that long distance vehicles would in future have two drivers to guard against exhaustion.

Traffic commandant Aggrey Adoli said the proposed guidelines for long-distance passenger vehicles sought to have conductors who were also qualified drivers. 

Even before the guidelines come into force, Mr Adoli asked bus owners to start implementing the proposals. The conductors would act as alternate drivers to relieve colleagues when they got tired.

Exhaustion has been identified as a major cause of accidents involving long-distance buses and trucks, he said.

Road accidents account for as many deaths in Africa and the rest of the developing world as does malaria, according to the World Health Organisation.

And according to the Association of Kenyan Insurers, about nine people die in road accidents each day.

The US researchers’ report says it is popularly believed in Kenya that “otherwise rational young males are transformed, Jekyll-and-Hyde-like, into irrational death-seekers when they occupy the driver’s seat of a minibus or matatu”.

“Our intervention motivates passengers to exercise their power as consumers, literally giving them a voice, by encouraging them to speak up, to heckle and chide the driver when his behaviour compromises their safety,” the researchers say.