Bump, grind and wrestle that cost Kenya billions

Kenya's national speed limit is 100 kph, and we have plenty of roads and cars well able to “cruise” at that rate. But the speed most cars finally “average” for a whole journey on most major highways is probably about 60 kph.

By modern motoring standards that is low, and even such a modest average is not easy nor guaranteed.   

Much of the process is fraught with peril and stress.

In many parts of the world, on roads with a limit of 100 kph, the journey average is more likely to be about 90 kph – easily, without stress or danger. Even when traffic is quite busy. 

Their average is so much higher because every vehicle is driven at or near the speed limit. All of them, of every size and class and kind. All the time. Their traffic flows, swiftly and steadily, with much reduced need to brake, accelerate or overtake or frequently change gear. 

They “cruise” from A to B. Quite quickly and much more safely. 

Our average is so low because our traffic does not flow – because a high proportion of vehicles do not maintain the ambient speed and some go so slowly they might as well be parked in the middle of the road. 

That, and speed bumps.

HUGE COST

So we are constantly braking, changing gear, accelerating and stressing our way through tailbacks and overtaking manoeuvres and coming to a near standstill for the thump of a log-shaped bump. We never “cruise” and rarely even “drive” from A to B. We bump and grind and wrestle our way there.

The cause of our slow and stressed progress is easy to see. The challenge is to find the cure. We do not have to reinvent the wheel; there are abundant examples in many parts of the world of systems that do flow, and ample wisdom as to why they do so. But how do we make that happen here?

And, perhaps first, does it matter?  And, if so, how much?

The answer, I think, is that it is the single over-riding priority for the design, administration and use of our entire road transport system – before and above any other factor.   Indeed, as we increase our national fleet at a prodigious rate and invest enormously in the mobility of people and goods for development, it is a national economic imperative.

The difference between 60 and 90 is not just an abstract 50 per cent. It is the productive time of every driver and passenger. The penalty cost (or potential saving) is tens of millions of man-hours… every day!

And all that braking and accelerating and gear-changing and thumping over bumps is adding to the operating and wear-and-tear costs of every part of every vehicle… every kilometre. The difference between “stop-start wrestle-and-crawl” and “swift and steady flow” in those respects is not marginal. It’s double!

The current cost of operating and maintaining all the vehicles on Kenya’s roads each year and the value of the cumulative man-hours spent behind the wheel or in the passenger seat is an interesting number.   Broadly, hundreds of billions of shillings.

The question for the planners to ponder is: What if Kenya could halve that cost? And what level of investment is justified, and how high a priority should it be, to remove the prime obstructions to swift and steady flow – dithering drivers, crawling vehicles and speed bumps?  In perpetuity.