Nightmare of navigating super highway

• Rising number of accidents and chaotic traffic control drive motorists and pedestrians mad on Thika road

While driving on Thika Road near Juja Town in March 2011, lawyer Muturi Kigano suddenly noticed concrete blocks right ahead of him. There were deep trenches on both sides of the new super highway.

His decades of driving experience could not help him. There was not enough time between him and the heavy rocks ahead to devise a way out. He was cornered. And to think that for about four hours the road had been so clear!

For the former commissioner in the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), those few seconds felt like all he had to live. His Sh8 million car hit the concrete blocks and rolled several times.

The vehicle was written off by insurance assessors, and his insurance providers had to compesate him for a new vehicle. Mr Kigano lived to tell the tale but had to spend more than five months recovering from head injuries.

Police at the Juja station says on that night alone they recorded three more accidents at the same spot.

Mr Kigano is one of the Thika superhighway road users who have taken the contractor to court over negligence. The Chinese company Shengli Engineering Construction Group was ordered last year by Justice Hatari Waweru to deposit Sh10 million in court before the hearing and determination of the case filed by the lawyer.

Mr Kigano accuses the company of blocking sections of the road without marking the deviation and providing warning, and he is seeking to be compensated for medical expenses in the amount of Sh892, 500. The lawyer also wants compensation for loss of income at the rate of Sh200, 000 per month for the five months he took to recover from the head injuries.

An appraisal report by the Africa Development Bank and the government dated September 2007 for the Nairobi-Thika Highway Improvement Project projected fewer accidents as one of the outcomes. The target is to reduce the average annual accident rate on the Nairobi-Thika section from 230 to less than 70.

But users of the new Thika Road take a cynical view of such statistics.

“I doubt it; accidents may increase instead,” said Mr Gilbert Olum, an earlier accident victim during the early stages of the road construction.

Mr Olum said the road needs properly marked lanes, clear road signs at various loops and bypasses and adequate lighting at night to ensure the safety of motorists.

The stretch from Kenyatta University to Thika has little or no signage despite numerous road diversions, concrete boulders and open gutters. It is also unclear how the designers intended for pedestrians to cross the eight lanes with motor vehicles coming at them from both directions.

Far from living up to its billing as East Africa’s greatest infrastructural development, the highway has gained the reputation of being one of the most difficult roads on which to find your way in Nairobi.

For lack of signage, motorists not used to the changing face of the road have to follow PSVs that ply the route – or just drive along on the proverbial wing and a prayer. Non-regulars have been known to hire motorbike riders to lead them through the road.

A common complaint about the ambitious project is that the route one takes to drive to a particular location can change without notice at any time. If you stop a traffic officer and ask for directions, he or she will shrug and wish you good luck; they have no clue either.

On Friday afternoon, Mr William Njoroge, a quantity surveyor, was on his way to visit Ruiru’s Zabibu Children’s Home. He meandered along until he found his way.

“On coming back I wanted to take the bypass to Nairobi city centre, but I failed to find a way to connect. There was not a single road sign to direct me, and I felt it dangerous to use the wrong side of the road and confront speeding oncoming vehicles,” he told the Sunday Nation.

One of the worst expriences is at the Ojijo Overpass where motorists exiting the intersection can barely see oncoming vehicles. Although the contractor for Lot 1 – China Wu Yi – has erected temporary signs on sections of that stretch to reduce the chances of accidents, they are very small and only clearly visible when drivers are on top of them.