Kenya should adopt rigorous testing for drivers

KENYA  CAN TAKE heart from the 80th anniversary of an event that changed the motoring world.

In 1935, England had about the same number of motor vehicles as we do now, but its road death toll was double our current score. Then they came up with an invention that dramatically reduced accident rates, and they have never again had to endure such levels of road carnage, despite the fact their number of vehicles is now 30 times bigger.

They called their invention “The Driving Test”. Henceforth, drivers would get a licence before they could get behind the wheel, and to get a licence they had to pass a test to prove their competence.

Now, taking a test did not, of itself, make anyone a better driver. Nor did having a “Driving Licence”. But the mandatory requirement for both these things did force wannabe motorists to take lessons, learn rules, practice skills and develop competence.

And that did make them (and their fellow road users) safer. Before that, the only lessons in driving came from the “owner’s handbook” of each vehicle,  which gave advice on how to start the car, how to change gear, how to move the steering wheel to negotiate a corner, and how to bring the car to a halt.

MADE FOR HORSES

Handbooks even offered ideas on what to do if the “bring-the-car-to-a-halt” bit didn’t work:  “use the steering to aim the vehicle at a soft obstruction, such as a hedge” is one well-documented example from Ford. No doubt others which have passed into the history of waste-paper baskets said “let go of everything and jump out!”

They did have some sort of Traffic Act, derived from laws governing the conduct of horses and carriages, and the hissing, clanking, coal-fired pre-car contraptions known as steam traction engines (which were exactly what their name suggests… on tyreless metal wheels).   

The first law that applied only to motorised vehicles was the Red Flag Act, which set a universal speed limit of 4 mph (about 6 kph) and required cars to be led by a man on foot, waving a red flag.

That law was repealed in 1904, and motorists started pressing the accelerator pedal a lot harder.  And designers started to produce vehicles that could readily achieve speeds of 100 kph or more. In parallel, their tyres, steering and brakes also improved but were still primitive and notoriously unreliable by modern standards. And they most certainly did not have any safety features.

These, in the hands of untaught, untested and mostly inexperienced motorists (sound familiar?) following rules and social culture designed for horses, were a lethal cocktail. Although, by and beyond the 1930s, technology, experience and cultural understanding were on a rapidly improving trajectory, there was a clear correlation between the introduction of a mandatory Driving Test and a dramatic reduction in road accidents.

So the concept that you must be proficiently taught and your competence must be rigorously tested before you are licensed to drive is something Kenya might like to consider emulating.

Currently, our test system is at the “owners handbook” level. Start, go, turn, stop, and if all else fails jump out and run away.